Traveling wasn’t quite as serendipitous or difficult with our newly purchased eSim so we ended up in Brussels, at the correct station, and on the correct day that our itinerary had called for. We had gotten a late start to the day, tired after the fun wedding festivities and high jinks from the previous night. It was a yucky day- overcast, unseasonably cool, and drizzly, but one of the first sights we spotted after disembarking from the train station put a smile on my face- it was a Smurf statue, and it was a tribute to the Smurfs creator, Peyo, who was a Belgian comic artist. (As aside: When researching for our trip I pointed out to Scott that the Smurfs were a Belgian cartoon, to which he replied “I never really got into those little **ckers.” So that is how Scott feels about the fictional little blue humanoid cartoon creatures that live in mushroom shaped houses in the forest.)

As we made the 15 minute walk to our city center lodging, the Hotel Floris Arlequin Grand-Place, we enjoyed seeing that each of the side streets had been extensively decorated and each had their own individual theme. Evidently they had been installed to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the famous Belgian painter Rene Magritte. It was elaborate and gave the city a certain charm and whimsical feel. Some of the ones we saw: flowers of every variety and iteration, umbrellas, bicycles, and birdcages. https://www.brusselstimes.com/573353/city-of-brussels-decorated-with-magritte-inspired-motifs

We were excited that our hotel room was ready for us when we arrived but that there was also room for us to pass each other inside it, it was about twice the size of the Amsterdam room. After dropping off our stuff and a quick nap we were ready to venture out into Brussels. We were less than a ten minute walk from Grand-Place, the famous historical square that is a UNESCO World Heritage spot and from Mannekin Pis, or the famous peeing boy fountain. We had lunch near Grand Place at the equivalent of a Belgian Subway (even the colors in the logo were the same) and later had a late afternoon deluxe Belgian waffle at a waffle shop.

On our way to see the famous and iconic Atomium we stopped in at the 17th century Church of Notre-Dame de Bon Secours and were surprised to see that it had a webbed nest swing hanging from its ancient rafters. Scott, not one to ever miss an opportunity like this, plopped down on it and had a swing. We are still not quite sure why it was there. The 100 meter tall Atomium, centerpiece of the 1958 World’s Fair, was a bit of a train ride outside the city. We opted not to go up into it, figuring that the views would be anti-climactic because of the dreary weather, so instead walked around the base of it for a bit admiring the shiny steel tubes and spheres that are assembled to resemble the structure of an atom.

By the time we made our way back to the hotel room we were tired, both from the wedding the day before and the day of sightseeing in the rain. So instead of venturing back out into the city to find some dinner, we decided to do a very American thing and to order pizza from Domino’s. It was easy enough to do online and within about 20 minutes we got a call that it was awaiting us at the lobby. Scott went down to fetch it and tried to give the bicycle delivery boy a cash tip, thoroughly flustering him. He ended up handing it back, saying that he couldn’t accept it and that this was his first day. The pizza hit the spot, even though it was less doughy and saucy than the Domino’s we were accustomed to. After our pizza we watched a movie in our room before calling it an early night.

The next morning we were excited to see the sun and enjoyed seeing the city under rays of sunlight instead of through raindrops. We walked around for a bit to see some more of the iconic sights and take some pictures before heading to the train station to make our way to the small town of Dinant in the Walloon region of Belgium.