Christmastime in Brussels

Our first European Adventure!

On the recommendation of J's dad, we took a 3 day trip to Brussels. By train, it's only a 2 hr. journey. Here are the kids on the Eurostar passing through France.

Our hotel was right in the center of the city, with a small plaza outside surrounded by eateries and chocolate shops.

We had promised C chocolate once we got to Belgium so of course that had to be our first stop. Her chocolate of choice was of the 'hot' variety so we found a little cafe right off the Plaza. This was by far the best cup of hot chocolate J and I ever tasted.

And no surprise, C was a fan too!

After the hot chocolate break, we did a little exploring. It didn't take us long to find the Grand'Plaza, the center of the city with little cobblestone streets branching off of it. The Plaza was all decked out for Christmas.

On one side of the plaza was a manger scene with live animals. Ever since her school play, C is quite enamored with baby jesus and the manger. Many a song from her play was sung during our trip.

There was a great big Christmas tree in the middle of the Plaza

And each night there was a spectacular light show set to music:

That first night, we walked around the Christmas market and had mussels and frites for dinner.

Day 2 started with Waffles from Dandoy Tearoom.

We had the Liege Waffles, plain with carmelized sugar on top (yum!), but there are stalls throughout the city selling the more traditional Belgium waffles and offering all different sorts of toppings.

Next stop was the famous Manneken Pis statue.

Apparently he gets dressed during the day so given the time of year, he was sporting a santa suit.

Across from the Manneken Pis statue, we found another manger with marionettes:

The rest of the morning we walked around the city and then went back to the hotel and we all took a really long nap. When we woke up it was already dark! Off to the Plaza we went to listen to a boys choir for a bit. That's when we stumbled upon Greek Row (or at least that's what we named it), where there was one greek restaurant after another. The proprietors would all open their windows and beckon us in. We had no idea how to choose one over the other so we went with the most crowded one. We were not dissappointed and the kids ate like champs. K especially liked the cabbage and was eating it by the fistful - go figure?

On the last day in Brussels, we took the metro to the Natural Sciences museum. The museum had an amazing dinosaur exhibit.

The museum was nearly empty so we had most of it to ourselves. It was fun walking around seeing all of the animals and the kids really enjoyed it. After the museum, we took the metro back to the hotel, picked up our bags and cabbed it to the train station. All in all, a fun little excursion and definitely some place we'd like to return.

To see more pictures from our trip, click here.