So, months ago we hopped on the Eurostar and went to Belgium. A last minute decision after we had to cancel our flights to Japan due to the devastating earthquake and tsunami.
We left on the Friday. The Eurostar gets you into the Gare-du-Bruxelles Midi if you're French and Brussel Zuid if you're Dutch. First things first, we went straight to a living beer museum for Cantillon, a family brewery that specialise in Lambic beers which are then made into Gueuze. They are a very different beer, very sour and very interesting. I'd highly reccommend it, you pay all of 6 euros and get to wander around a historical brewery. I did wonder at times what NZ health and safely laws would think of all this but I loved it and we got to try three different beers at the end.
It was about a 15 minute walk into the centre of Brussels called Grote Markt. There you are surrounded by chocolate shops, beer shops and of course restaurants selling Moules Frites.
Of course, we had to immerse ourselves straight into the culture. For €12 or so we ended up with a 3 course meal including a free beer and a waffle to finish. Mmm. We spent the afternoon drinking a few beers in Delirum, a beer cafe with the world record for stocking the most beers (and you thought the Malthouse menu was overwhelming) before wandering around slightly tipsy pretending to buy chocolate and getting free samples. We then walked it off by heading up to the European Union part of town where our funky hotel was. We had more chips for dinner, the chips in Belgium are definitely as good as you hear.
In the morning we headed back into the city and hopped on a train to Bruges/Brugge. I had decided to spend two nights here as everyone says it's much nicer than Brussels. We went to the chocolate museum before trying to find Du Garre, a beer place I had read about on the internet beforehand. I'm glad I did as this was my favourite place on the whole trip. It was packed being a Saturday and we were sat on two seats by the window which acted as our table. We got free cheese with every beer we ordered which was especially excellent for me since Oren won't eat it. We drunk a lot of beer. The house beer is definitely worth it.
Oren in the small entrance to the Du Garre alley. Bruges is just lovely to wander around and we took a tipsy boatride on the canals which was absolutely lovely.
Walking by the canals lit up at night was very romantic. They call it a mini Venice afterall. There was more waffles to be had too.
In the morning we had a healthy breakfast of Milka mallowpuffs! Milka is an awesome alpine chocolate which is creamy like NZ chocolate.
After that breakfast of champions, we followed it up with a tour of Bruges only remaining brewery Du Halve Maan. It's obviously never too early for beer and I loved their beer that was made only for the US market.
I loved in Bruges that there was the constant sound of horse hooves clopping on the cobblestones. Oren never wants to go on the horseys though. :( Our second day was again spent with a lot of time in Du Garre enjoying lots of beers. What? It's Belgium.
Next morning, we hopped on another train to Antwerp. Unfortunately I should have read that literally most things are closed on a Monday! The station itself on arrival was impressive.
And Antwerp has the most amazing architecture.
We walked down to the river, posed with a castle and then crossed the river through a pedestrian tunnel that is 572 metres long. The thing I loved most about it was that they had the original wooden escalators. I never thought in my life that I would see ones in action and I was mighty impressed. Too bad about all the schoolchildren on the way through that were amplified 100x by the small space.
We followed the night up with some Belgian Italian. Mmm. We had eaten Indian the first night in Bruges and Chinese the second haha.
It was a train back to Brussels for another day on the Tuesday before a 7pm train back to London. We bought chocolates this time, some chocolate ducks for me and some cinnamon and cocoa truffles for the both of us. We headed back to Delirium to add to our beer count (I believe at the end it was 22 different beers we tried), first the underground one then the one on the other side on the square.
I loved Belgium so much I booked trains with three of my close friends for a girlie weekend at the end of July to celebrate turning 27. I imagine there will be more beer, chips and waffles enjoyed. It amazed me how many people were tri-lingual in the city and people were always so happy to speak English to us even if we tried to do otherwise.
Definitely put Belgium on your to do list.
I started with lots of eggs. A tip I learnt from lemon meringue pie, chilled eggs are a lot easier to seperate.
Egg whites to soft peaks and the rest of the ingredients are introduced.
Glossy and stiff means it's ready to be slow cooked in the oven.
Nearly two hours later, my first pavlova ever is done.
I thought they were pretty impressive and delicious I might add.
It was then off to bed so I could get up bright and early to prepare our massive leg of lamb. Oren was still recovering from a cold so I let him sleep in while doing strange looking things with herbs.
Oren finally arose so we could open presents from under our awesome tree.
I skyped with my parents, in particular to point out to my own mother that she did not know my actual name.
Then it was lunch time!
All and all, it was a fairly successful day and with our central heating it was easy to ignore it was about -1 degrees outside all day. I still prefer Christmas in summer, being forced to take leave in the middle of winter and use your own heating doesn't seem fair.
