Let's start with Bruges' Choco Story. Sadly by the time we arrived there, it was 16:30, or 30mn from closing time. so we had to go through it quickly. Still, it gave a good overview of how cocoa beans were discovered, which birds ate them, and the complicated process to turn them into yummy chocolate :) (they also had a demo showing how to make a specific kind of chocolate):

pretty, that bird that eats the cocoa beans :)

the beans are colorful too

Choco frites, really? :)

all the reasons why chocolate is good for your health :)

yummy samples to try on the way out :)

A few days later, while in Bruxelles, we went to see the Chocolage Village Museum, which sure took its museum job seriously, and had even more displays:

fantastic model of the basilica

atomium

They also had a place where wthey were growing real cocoa plants:

chocolate is easy

a 'mere' 15 steps...

I quite enjoyed their poster and comics collection too:

you be a good boy and you get chocolate, simple :)

Since we were going to Holland, close to the Belgian border, I figured we should take a few days to visit Belgium. It was only 4 days, not enough, but then again, that's what we had. We started early on December 26th with a Thalys high speed train to Bruxelles and a connection to Bruges. We got there in only 2h20 or so.

first time I've seen X-Ray machines before boarding a train

Once in Bruges we went directly to our B&B (Saint Sauveur, Bruges), run by a super nice French lady who gave us loaner bikes so that we get around more quickly (mind you Bruges is very walkable, but bikes helped us get around a bit more quickly, especially when we went to the edge of town).
Most people do Bruges in 2-3 days, we did pretty much all of it in 26 hours :) (and that includes waiting for things that only opened at 10:00), delaying us quite a bit:

Saint Salvator Cathedral

Church of Our Lady

Then, we went to walk around:

We then did a boat tour, a good way to look around:

The main plaza was next, starting with Belfy Tower, which we climbed to the top after a 30mn wait in line:

music box for the bells

We then did the rest of the main plaza and the museum there:

Next, we went to the chocolate museum, where we had only 35mn before it closed (everything closes early):

We then went to visit the bruges story museum, which thankfully closed after 17:00, unlike everything else:

Main Plaza looks great at night too of course:

We then went out for dinner to conclude our day:

The next morning, we had to wait for museums to open. One of them opened at 09:30 instead of 10:00, how nice:

We then biked to the city gate:

And we finished our trip by visiting the French Fry Museum (which of course are not French, but Belgian):

We then had to pick up our rental car, and drive to our Dutch Family gathering.

Sadly it was foggy, so we didn't get great views from the towers there, but we still had a good time enjoying the views, little Xmas houses, and another canal boat ride:

Sint Michielskerk

Saint Nicholas' Church

sadly, not much of a view from the top of those churches, bummer... (Belfort and Saint Bravo's Cathedral)

So, we went to Saint Bavo's Cathedral while hoping that the fog would lift:

They have a very nice triple panel painting, which you can see closed and noon, and opened the rest of the time:

We then went back to Belfort tower, but the fog didn't lift

Sigh...

Music box that actuates the bells of Belfort

Ghent was full of little Xmas houses. We went to see a few:

chocolate tools, yummy

Just like Bruges, the canals were nice to see and do a ride on:

narrowest house in Ghent

From the canal ride, we went to see Castle Gravensteen:

just like the rest of Ghent, the view wasn't fantastic due to fog

Before long, it started getting dark, got a few pictures:

We then went back to the train station, drop off the rental car, and took a train to Bruxelles:

err, where did I put my bike? :)

it was 'fun' to get our luggage up the stairs :)

On our way down, we walked by grand place, beautiful, and went by the famous manneken pis on the way too:

We then went to Alexandre for Dinner

The next morning, we had breakfast at our B&B and headed out for a walk while everything was closed (nothing opened before 10:00, sadly, making the day kind of short). We ended up at Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Cœur à Koekelberg when they opened at 10:00 and went to the top for so so views due to the fog not having quite lifted yet:

every city seems to have a ferris wheel now :)

finally we made it to Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Cœur à Koekelberg thanks to uber, still foggy at 10:00

it did look better by the time we left :)

From the Basilique, we walked to the Chocolate Village Museum and had an informative tour

From there, we took the subway to the Atomium and Mini Europe:

We did mini Europe first, which was fun, but it was a mistake, should have done the atomium first

We then went to the atomium, which I figured was a bit of a washed out attraction during low season, so I didn't worry much about lines. I was wrong, there was a 2H+ line to get in. Even with line optimization, it took us a while to get up. The main line was to get to the top, which had reasonable views. Then you had a different entrance to see just a portion of the balls, the other ones were not in use anymore, which was a bit of a shame, but the remaining ones had some expos inside:

escalators or stairs between the balls

part of the expo recounted when Belgium still had an airline, Sabena (since then bankrupt)

nice plane food back then

Once done with mini Europe and Atomium, much later than I had planned, we took another uber to the Comic Book Museum. Belgium is probably the capital of the world on commic books, especially in variety, I grew up with them:

Hergé is famous for the great job he did with Tintin, but he was just one of many

the museum pointed out that the first comic strips actually came from the egyptians

I also loved the schtroumpfs (smurfs)

After the museum closed, everything was closed, so we went back to Grand Place to see the light show on the buildings. Click on the video for more:

We then walked around to see the little Xmas houses and get dinner:

During our short time in Bruxelles, we saw many chocolate shops, as well as beer shops, and those were only a very small sample:

beautiful Galeries Royales St Hubert, filled with shops

The next morning, we went to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History, which was nice enough to open at 09:00:

Inside the museum was a very nice (and cold) hangar filled with planes

And across the street was a great car collection at Autoworld

After Autoworld, we walked to the Google Office for a quick visit

And nearby was the European Parliament, where we went to visit Parliamentarium:

We then used the little time left to see Mont des Arts, Place Royale, and Église Notre-Dame du Sablon before we had to head back to the train station for our fast train back to Paris (just 1h15) and have a reveillon dinner with my dad:

sacre coeur

And here are some pictures taken from inside:

nice model of centre george pompidou

sacre coeur

pisa

venice

double tire, interesting

This electric 'car' was the fastest one in the world in 1899*, at 105kph

pretty colors :)

fancy futuristic car :)

lamborghini

damn, a citroen-maserati, didn't even know those existed

pretty

The belgians, kings of comic books, even had comic strips portraying a race car driver.

Bruxelles Autoworld, if you're anywhere close, go see it.

Considering the airport wasn't nearby, I also came to wonder how they got all those planes there.

some kind of training drone?

another interesting midget plane

what was that?

another training drone?