April 28-30, 2013 – Days 27, 28, 29 - Brussels, Belgium

April 28-30, 2013 – Days 27, 28, 29 - Brussels, Belgium

I’m getting to the point where I don’t know where to start because I have so many observations every day, in every city – so I guess I will go random. 

Brussels – so many beers, so little time; so much chocolate, so little time; so much great food, so little time.  We already showed you pictures of our Brussels Hotel.  We just love this place.  There is something to see around every corner in Hotel Welcome – breakfast is included, and it’s a really good one.   

The mascot of Brussels is the Mannequin of Pis – a little boy peeing water.  He really is little, but he has a song and over 700 outfits.  We went to the City Museum today to see his wardrobe – it was quite amusing.  We couldn’t take pictures so I bought a postcard of him in his Elvis outfit and took a picture of that.  We also bought a bottle opener/corkscrew – yeah, we know – tacky, tacky.

We found a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit in another museum which we thoroughly enjoyed.  We’ve discovered that we really prefer history museums or museums dedicated to one person.  We found this museum more interesting than the Louvre.  Even though it didn’t have any original paintings, it talked about them in great length.  We learned much more about the Mona Lisa than we did in Paris where we found the Louvre very overwhelming.  And we learned about Leonardo the scientist. 

Yesterday, we did half the chocolate crawl, but we found the best chocolate today.  We skipped Godiva – we can get that in the states – but found the most amazing chocolate-covered cherries ever (and I am a connoisseur) and great hazelnut bark at a chocolatier called Elisabeths.  The chocolate-covered cherries still have the pits – imagine that.

More about Brussels in a little bit.

Picture 1 - A little bit of heaven: Belgian Beer and Belgian Chocolate; Picture 2 - 

Our little friend - the Mannequin of Pis; Picture 3 - The Elvis Outfit; Picture 4 - Kathie and a chocolate-covered cherry; Picture 4 - St. Catherine's Square in front of our Hotel; Picture 5 - Museum with Leonardo Exhibit