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Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Destination Belgium

Last weekend i was in Belgium - land of chocolates and beers.
Belgium is situated between Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.

I went directly to the capital city - Brussels - administrative capital of the EU.
Many had told us that there was nothing picturesque to visit in brussels but this trip proved them wrong.
Usually, when we go travelling we always have a list of places to visit and then the time-lines and we hop on and off the buses.
This trip was different. We dint have a plan. We knew the important places to visit but we dint know where they were located. In all, we stranded in the streets of Brussels. And to add more excitement, very few people in Belgium can talk English. Merci and Bon Jour the only french i knew wouldn't help either.

We were five in all. Alex a chinese, who was lost in his thoughts but never failed to notice his bretheren. Sumeet the when-in-doubt-ask guy, who always loses his way, we found the secret story though. Billu the man, who needs a top view to find his way or he needs a formula to compute the distance between tha place we are and where the car was parked. Bina with volatile memory and an ever evaporating sense of direction and me - i was the one with all the information which can be credited as useless :)

So we set sail.


From German to Brussels, it takes approximately 4 hr and 30mintes. Traffic is relatively slower on the Belgium bahn. But its a picturesque drive, if u dont doze off. We were drinking in the country side and adoring the cars that zipped past us. With indian music in Germany we were in love with EUROPE.
(If you dont have navigation in your car, map24 would be useful)


The first of the places we saw was the BELLEVUE Museum. There is an entrace fee of about 3 euros and when we went inside, we were wondering why we ever came here. When you dont read your history books properly this museum was a wrong place to be in. I found it totally boring until i saw the old style telephone and a radiophone.
Outside the museum, one can see the entire palace of the king. I wont say anything about the flags. (see previous post). It is a nice cobblestone pathway and the palace looks huge and mammothical. Make up your mind before you step in :)


We decided that we wanted to see the Mannekan Pis. This is a really small statue of a boy pissing. I was shocked to see so many tourists looking at this boy. We even joked that the next time people would come around seeing a dog peeing in the lamppost. Anyways, there is some story behind it all. Apparently the belgians beleive this boy has saved their country from being plundered or ravaged by fire. Its a good luck sign to them. The road signs are really tiny and by the time we got there we all were mighty tired.

If there is one thing that leaves me on a perpetual high, its CHOCOLATES. When i saw the chocolate fountain in one of the shops in Belgium, i even forgot to close my mouth.We tasted some of their handmade chocolates and ummmm.. they were yummy. So i grabbed a few for moi.
(To be Continued...)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Me waiting for the consignment..
thanx in advance...

Meera said...

@J: Its for me myself.. am very selfish when it comes to chocolates

Vasudev Udhatya said...

Need some more info about the Belgium Beer :-)

catch 22 said...

You better get some choclats whn u come back if u don want ur neck to be strangled. Cha I don even know how to sound evil and threaten ;)

Ms.N said...

babe... choclate fountains have hit India now... 10 bucks to dip a piece of cake in the fountain - and man is it heaven :D...

u might wanna try uploading ur pics in picasaweb.google.com.. in case u actually didnt know abt picassa, ( which is highly improbable! ) its a cool foto managing/ editing software... This website lets u uploda fotos in original size and has a much cooler interface than yahoo - but takea quite a bit of time to upload!

Mama said...

you dinn see Jannekin Pis (female version of Mannekin) ??
Btw, chocolates are best at Leonidas located near the City Centre.

Meera said...

@vasu: Belgium Beer.. Dint indulge.
@catch22: Chocolates.. read comment 2.
@ms n: picassa it is..
@mama: Now u tell me.

catch 22 said...

Well you leave me with no choice but to strangle ur neck, eeehaahaa (Evil Laugh )