Brussels, Belgium

I'm wrapping up my recap of our trip to Belgium now with shots from our last stop - Brussels! 

We slept overnight in a hostel in Antwerp and headed to Brussels bright and early, even though we only crashed at 2:30 am the previous night. But there was sightseeing to do!

Brussels is the capital and largest city of Belgium, with 1.2 million inhabitants. It's also the de facto capital of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO. It's pretty enormous, so we did what we could with the half-day that we had.

Brussels is far from the prettiest city we've ever seen. Outside of the city center, everything is fairly modern and dull. But the center square is absolutely gorgeous and more than makes up for that.

The Royal Palace, built in 1783. Although the monarchs don't actually live here, they still use it for official ceremonies

The palace gardens

The St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral is the city's best-known church and named after the city's two patron saints. Construction on the gothic building started in the 1200s and lasted 300 years. The Belgian royalty still marries here

Particularly notable are the stained glass windows

The Galeries Royales St. Hubert are 200 meters of covered shopping galleries. The promenade was first built in 1847, and back then, one had to pay to get in

And now, to the amazing Grand Place. Grand Place refers to the central square of Brussels. The entire Grand Place is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is considered to be one of Europe's most beautiful squares. Originally built in the 1200s, the square was destroyed by a French bombardment in 1694, when it was rebuilt in the Gothic style that one can still see today

Town Hall in the background

Beer? Check. Chocolate? Check. Waffles? Check!

The Mannek Pis is a small (61 cm) fountain figurine but a huge tourist attraction. Statues of peeing boys once indicated where the poor could sell their urine to leatherworkers. This particular one was made in 1619 and is dressed in costume several times each week

I'm a little confused as to why it is so wildly popular. We had to fend through a big crowd to get to the fence

St. Nicholas church dates to 1381 but was ruined in the 16th, 17th, and finally the 18th centuries

The rest of average-looking Brussels

The domed building in the far background is the Palace of Justice, home to Belgium's highest court

Way in the distance is the Atomium, build for the World Expo of 1958

Other than the church, Brussels doesn't look that great from above either

I ate Belgian meatballs for our late lunch, but for some reason every restaurant in this area was advertising mussels - apparently that's the dish of choice here. My friends had them, and even though I do not usually enjoy seafood, I have to admit they were tasty

Our trip in a nutshell - sightseeing, beer, and chocolate

Delirium is a famous bar that offers about 3,000 kinds of beer

I headed back to the Grand Place just to get more pictures since the sky had cleared up. Here is the city museum, which contains a model of early Brussels when the city still had a river that flowed through it (the river was covered in the 1800s since it smelled too bad)

The Town Hall was built in 1420 and is topped by a 5-meter statue of St. Michael, the patron saint of Brussels, bringing the building's total height to 315 feet. This building looked tall to me, but the Cologne cathedral, at 516 feet, would dwarf it

Closeup of the Town Hall. As you can see, the front archway and main building facade are off-center. According to legend, the architect leapt to his death from the tower once he discovered this error. But the scattered construction history and limited space probably caused this

Brussels is a lot less visually striking once away from the central square

The entire Grand Place

Once more at the funky train station where we transferred trains, this time on our way home

That concludes the overview of our trip through Belgium! We loved everything about it. Interesting notes:

• As I mentioned, the Belgians are extraordinarily serious about their beer. We all think Belgian beer out-matches the German beer we have had so far (maybe we were just turned off by all the Kölsch we've had). When I let on to my German host brother that I held such an opinion, he instantly became defensive and stated that it is simply impossible for Belgian beer to be better
• I have also briefly mentioned that Germans are not at all nationalistic, and thus one hardly ever sees German flags waving. In my three days in Belgium I saw more Belgian flags than I've seen German flags, and I've been in Germany for months.
• Belgium is mishmash of many different languages, and everything is always translated into at least French and Dutch, and one hears German and English on the street as well, of course
• I think this was just an aberration, but we noticed the country is kind of.... smelly. In random spots like a train station, or some stairs, or in some corner, some foul stench would reach our nostrils. That's not too abnormal for cities, so it didn't bug us much. But on top of that, we learned Bruges' canals used to reek since they were also the sewers at one point, and that Brussels' river was covered up since it smelled too bad. This led us to half-jokingly conclude that Belgium is smelly. Sorry Belgium.

That was my funnest and most memorable weekend yet, and I will never forget my first experiences with that wonderful country. Especially since they provided me with such amazing pictures. Auf Wiedersehen, Belgien!