Doodle: Belgium

Day trip to Brussels

This was one of my more sporadic ideas.. A boring day at work led to my usual holiday browsing - my focus on this occasion being particularly on Eurostar travel. After an hour of perusing, i realised a day trip to Brussels wasn't as stupid as i had previously thought. One conversation with my friend Sophie who jumped on board with the idea and the tickets were booked.

On a rainy April day at 6am we set off having no idea what to expect from the Belgium capital.

After finally managing to navigate ourselves to the centre of town, map in tow, we sat down to a glass of vin chaud overlooking one of the most beautiful squares I've ever seen.

The vin chauds went down a treat on the chilly day and by the time we had finished we had mapped out our route and decided on what food we were going to eat.
First stop - the Cathedral of Saint Michel and Gudaue of course (i think my obsession with European churches is starting to get quite worrying!). Not my most favourite but still beautiful none the less!

We then took a stroll around the streets up to the Parc de Bruxelles - a.k.a Warandepark. Not the biggest park but definitely a cutie!

We then headed up to the Royal Palais, across to Monts des Arts, and into the Sablon where we stopped for some lunch! Sablon is full of gorgeous vintage clothes and antique shops - slightly out of my price range for this particular trip but will definitely be a point of interest when i next go back. If you are looking for somewhere fancy to stop for lunch then Sablon is your best bet. As we were more in the mood for street food we headed down the road to Rue de Bouchers where we feasted on mussles followed by chips from a corner shop. One bit of advice when trying to find good fries.. follow the queues!

Markets were the next pit stop - cute and quant with matching red and green roofs, there was nothing not to love about wandering around, especially when a little old man is playing music in the background!

The Atomium were next and this, for me, seemed completely out of place next to the rest of beautiful Brussels. However, to give it justice its definitely one of a kind and worth the visit!

The day finished with an early dinner where we sampled local cheese and chocolate - an ideal end to our outing. Two and a half hours later we were back in London.. Not bad really!

The best thing about Brussels is that its all walkable and the whole city smells like waffles (which for a coeliac is painful!) - however wear trainers and be prepared to walk up and down hills all day! Below are some of my favourite snaps of the day - overall it was definitely a worth while trip.