onlyfoolsandmobiles

Another long weekend in Finland, so another trip away. This time it was Brussels. As always the journey starts with a flight, this time a Finnair flight to Brussels airport. It all looked promising as we flew out of Finland. The weather was behaving itself.

Morning View of Finland from a plane

Clouds

Belgium from the air

So far so good, a few clouds but blue sky too so it looked promising for the weekend – maybe the forecasters had been wrong, or maybe not… Anyway after landing we trekked through Brussels airport and boy that was one long trek -we never thought we were going to get out of that airport! A taxi ride later and we were at The Conrad, have to say it was a nice hotel and part of the Hilton Group so I got points and the nightly rate was very good for this standard of hotel.

Conrad

Having freshened up we headed out into Brussels, primarily because we were starving and needed food, but also to have a look round. We found the Palais De Justice just a short walk from the hotel -sod’s law it was being renovated. So not much to look at but plenty to look at from there i.e the city skyline.

Brussels Skyline

After a great lunch at Ma Folle De Soeur we wandered around Brussels again, pretty aimlessly to be honest, and ended up at Grand Place.

Grand Place

It seems luck was not on our side this trip as Grand Place was host to a police display and was being set up for some sort of open air concert. They obviously knew I was coming and wanted to make it difficult to take photos. So on we went and managed, thanks to Nokia Maps on the 808, to find the Manneken Pis.

Manneken Pis

After seeing the famous Manneken Pis we meandered our way back to the Conrad to see if our rooms were now ready (it was time for a siesta, I am getting old). After a nap and shower etc we made our way out into Brussels again to the restaurant we had picked for dinner, this time it was Hemgies. A fantastic burger bar on Rue Des Dominicains. Highly recommended on Trip Advisor and I wholeheartedly agree. Well worth a visit if you are in Brussels.

Day 2 of our trip was spent in Luxembourg, this will be in another post.

Day 3 and our final day was spent back in Brussels, as we were flying home later that day we only had enough time to do one major sight, what else but The Atomium. As luck would have it, Belgium decided to have a British summer, so yes, you guessed it, it was raining heavily.

Still I managed to get some photos.

The Atomium

Rain!!

Rain!!

Mini Europe

View from the Atomium

View from the Atomium

View from the Atomium

That’s it for my quick tour of Brussels. Stay tuned, Luxembourg is coming up shortly. Hope you enjoyed the photos of a not-so-sunny Brussels.