After a partial day in Ghent, we took an evening train to Bruxelles, checked in at l'Epicentre, our B&B in an authentic historical narrow building that was challenging to get into with luggage, but the location was hard to beat and our host was super nice and helpful.
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:
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
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:
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:
