Enjoying some winter wonders in Brussels… COMPLETED About This Page:

[cubfancolleen]

What a shame that dinner was less than stellar (especially at that cost - and neither of you had drinks other than diet Coke?). I would've gone for Mark's entree. Any time I have mussels, I compare them to those I had in Brussels.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

What a shame that dinner was less than stellar (especially at that cost - and neither of you had drinks other than diet Coke?).

I would've gone for Mark's entree. Any time I have mussels, I compare them to those I had in Brussels.

I was very tempted, but I just liked the idea of what I had - shame it didn't like up to its billing.

[chezp]

Sunday 7 December – part one: where exactly is breakfast?

I woke up about 8:30am, having been woken up a couple of times in the night by the thumping music, but I think Mark had a much worse time with it. Thankfully, I take tablets to help me sleep as part of the measures to deal with my chronic fatigue, so I guess that helped. Add to that, Mark hadn’t been well in the night either, and he really hadn’t had a good time of it.

Needless to say, we got going slowly. I wasn’t overly impressed with the shower here. It was nothing special, and very old fashioned – I guess not surprising, given the history of the place, but at least they had proper bath sheets, something I do love in a hotel.

We headed down for breakfast about 9:30am, and discovered this on the way out of the room… nestled under the more traditional “do not disturb” sign.



My goodness, what a journey it was to find breakfast! We’d been told that there were two big glass doors off the lobby that led to the Indian Garden, where breakfast would be, but first you come into this area….



… then you round the corner and realise it’s up the stairs…



Once you get up there, this is what you’re presented with:



We were seated immediately, and made our way over to explore the buffet. Of course, I had to photograph all the amazing theming of this restaurant.



I found these a bit disturbing, especially given there are peacocks at the hotel I go swimming at, and one of them was happily posing literally a metre in front of me when I was there on Friday. I couldn’t help but think of him when I looked at these.



We’d found out yesterday when we checked in that, if you didn’t have breakfast included with your room rate, and luckily we did, then the charge is €28 ($35) per person. I have to say, that while the selection was fine, if I was paying that much for a breakfast, I’d be expecting a lot more.



Some of the stuff was a bit weird too. We both got pineapple juice, but when we tasted it, it was more like a combination of pineapple and grapefruit juice, which was not particularly pleasant. The tea however was excellent, and I happily polished off my whole pot.

On the way back to the room, I got a few more photos of the impressive lobby.



We headed back down a little while later to check out. I must admit I wasn’t sure how long it would take us. On the way back up, we’d taken the stairs, there had been such a long line of people waiting for an elevator, and we’d seen at least 10 people in a line to check out, but we really lucked out. We were straight in the elevator, and there was only one person in front of us when we got to the lobby.

We left our luggage and I got some more photos of the lobby area:



Next: this is a building site!

[Disneybine]

Wow, that hotel sure is impressive. Some of the pictures look more like a grand old train station than a hotel!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Disneybine

Wow, that hotel sure is impressive. Some of the pictures look more like a grand old train station than a hotel!

It's funny you say that, as that's what I thought when we first saw it on TV and that's what inspired me to book it.

[cubfancolleen]

I agree about the lobby looking like a train station. Not sure what it is, but that was my first thought!
I was laughing a bit about the winter display - the proportion of things seems a bit off, with those kids throwing snowballs all as tall, or taller, than the houses! Maybe it was a scene from Gulliver's Travels?

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

I agree about the lobby looking like a train station. Not sure what it is, but that was my first thought!
I was laughing a bit about the winter display - the proportion of things seems a bit off, with those kids throwing snowballs all as tall, or taller, than the houses! Maybe it was a scene from Gulliver's Travels?

I hadn't spotted that before, but you are so right!

[disney_duke]

It is indeed a very grand hotel, but it's a shame the dinner service and concern for others quality of quietness at night isn't really up to the same level. Still worth it though - if nothing else, for the experience!

[SuperDave]

Nice photos of Brussels and the Grand Place all lit up at night for Christmas! That was quite a special parade with the appearance of St. Nicolas. Enjoyed, some of your sightings in the shops with the chocolates and macaroons! I especially enjoyed the photo of the macaroons on the spiral staircase!

You have quite a lovely hotel, but too bad your dinner at Cafe Metrepole wasn't quite up to par!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

It is indeed a very grand hotel, but it's a shame the dinner service and concern for others quality of quietness at night isn't really up to the same level. Still worth it though - if nothing else, for the experience!

That's kind of how we came away feeling, definitely worth it to experience an amazing place.

[chezp]

Sunday 7 December – part two: this is a building site!

We headed outside, and my goodness, it felt a lot colder than it had done yesterday. We pulled on all our layers, and set off, seeing that there was a strike on the Metro, bus and tram network tomorrow and there would be severe delays. I’m glad we’re not in Brussels tomorrow.



We headed down to the De Brouckere metro station, and unfortunately ended up behind a couple of massive groups of people, all waiting to use the two ticket machines. Yes, you read that right, just two of them. I waited in the much shorter line first to withdraw some money, then we must’ve stood in line about 10 minutes to get our tickets. The worst thing was, when we got there, we couldn’t see what the issue was. I literally went through the options, saw that a 24 hour travelcard was cheaper than 10 journeys, so I went for the 24 hour version, paid and we were done. What’s so hard about that?

We headed inside with our tickets, then had to negotiate another set of ticket machines. Here Mark decided to go for ones that accommodate two people. Now with these, you have barriers that open to let you in, then barriers at the other end that let you out – except we couldn’t fathom how to get the second set of barriers to work. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, and although I’m not claustrophic, the 10 seconds or so it took us to fathom it out (it’s a touch system with your tickets) weren’t something I’d want to repeat.

That drama over, we set off on the escalators, getting yelled at by a woman to get out of her way. She was the stupidest woman. She appeared to be leading a group of people, yet we watched her take the wrong route and have to backtrack, and we also saw her on the platform with the map out, trying to work out their route. Even better, although she and one guy were ahead of us, the rest tagged along a couple of minutes later. Of course, she got on our train, and we both heaved a sigh of relief when the idiot got off – and not at our stop.



When we got to our stop, it’s not too much to say it was a building site, as these photos prove:



When we emerged, we found the details about this work:



Now I’m no maths genius, but even I can work out that 1,645 calendar days doesn’t add up with work starting in June 2008 – now six and a half years ago. Ok, with the help of a calculator, it’s actually four and a half years, which means it should’ve been done by December 2012. They certainly don’t look as if they’re close to completion either, and they’re now two years behind schedule…

We emerged into another building site area, also known as some of the home of the European Union headquarters. This monster of a building has only recently reopened, after it had to be closed to have large quantities of asbestos removed.



This sign explains all about the next building we saw…



Really, I should be very excited about seeing such important political buildings, especially as European Integration was one of my specialist subjects in my politics degree, but quite frankly I’m not. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we’ve got any option but to be part of the European Union, and I’ve seen a huge number of projects in the UK benefit from European funding, but I just can’t get enthused about these massive buildings. I just look at them and think how much they’re costing each country in the EU – and trust me, there are a lot of countries in the EU now.

I found this particularly ironic, especially given the political problems we’ve already had since Juncker came to power as the new European Union president. He isn’t a fan of the UK, shall we just say?



And yes, a few more of the many hundreds of European Union buildings in this city, not to mention other centres of European Union power, such as the Hague in the Netherlands and Strasbourg in France…



Finally we made it to Parc du Cinquantenaire, which was built by King Leopold II to mark the golden anniversary celebrations of the independence of Belgium in 1880. The park was laid out on unused marshes, and the original aim was to have a palace, as well as the arch and two exhibition centres that you see here today. Sadly, by the time of the 1880 Art and Industry Expo, the palace still wasn’t ready. Eventually, 50 years later, it was completed, and each side of the palace ended up being used for two very different museums, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get there first…



Just like we saw yesterday on our taxi drive over here, the roads go underneath this park…



Next: that will leave me with no money!

[disney_duke]

The business with the subway system didn't sound too good, especially the annoying people!

The big cities of Europe are always so interesting to see the new and modern buildings by the old and historic ones. Well, Milwaukee has that too, but our old and historic only goes back to the early 1900's.

[Cam22]

Those EU buildings are definitely massive. I'm already liking the park much better, and so cool that the road goes under it.

[chezp]

Sunday 7 December – part three: that will leave me with no money!

We were in the Parc du Cinquantenaire to visit the Museum of the Army, but finding the entrance proved to be a bit of a challenge. We tried along here first, but no joy.



We then made our way over to the arch, marvelling at the work that went into creating this. Now I could see why it took additional funds and an extra 50 years to complete.



Once we headed through the arch, we could see the entrance to the museum, and we gratefully headed inside, as my goodness, it was cold out.

Mark went to hand in the backpack, as the signs told us that no bags were allowed, but I was a bit shocked when they asked for my handbag, especially as it had the passports in, along with my cash and credit cards. They were adamant it wasn’t going in, so I handed it over, removing the passports first, and in we went. I have no idea why the bags all have to go in the cloakroom, and to me, it’s a really dumb idea, as it no doubt leaves a lot of people, and not just me, with no money, meaning no purchases in their shop or their café.

We headed into the entrance hall…



… but I quickly found a passage off to the right, that was signed towards the aviation hall, so we headed that way, finding Manneken Pis in another outfit on the way:



The aviation hall was certainly very impressive, and it was a beautifully light and airy place, perfect for exhibitions like this. However, it was also freezing, and no warmer than outside, which certainly spurred you on to move through it as quickly as you could. I’m not sure that’s quite the impression they actually want to give people, and it’s a shame that no effort is made to try and heat this in some way.



I found a sign to an exhibition on Sabena, the Belgian airline, and we headed that way. There was a lot of fascinating stuff here, and we learnt a lot about a company that I’d never heard of. Sadly, it sounded like it went pretty much the same way as SwissAir did, which we learnt all about last year when we visited the Museum of Transport in Lucerne, and ironically, SwissAir had a role in the passing of the Belgian company, as you’ll see from these descriptions of its history…



Next: I’m not convinced it will be done by 2016

[cubfancolleen]

I think I flew Sabena in 1997 or actually maybe 1998, when I went to Brussels. Shame about them going under.