Brussels is 188 miles northeast of Paris,130 miles southeast of Amsterdam,70 miles west of Lille and 39 miles south of Antwerp.
Brussels
was the first Belgian city we set foot on because that was where we flew to and from on our first trip in 2002. We saw almost
nothing of Brussels when we flew there and took a train to Bruges. We saw a little more on our departure because we had an afternoon
and evening before our flight the next day. Our hotel was up the hill from the train station in a Turkish neighborhood.
That day in June, Turkey's soccer team won a huge game in the World Cup competition and there were great and joyful celebrations on
our street, with cars whizzing by, people hanging out the windows waving Turkey's colors, horns blaring and, literally, dancing in
the streets.
We had a nice dinner in a Turkish restaurant, walked a long ways on a street overlooking the city, through a pretty
park into a shopping arcade where we bought some very expensive Belgian chocolates to take home.
We had one other visit to Brussels
when we took an excursion train trip from Ghent--a great bargain. In Belgium people over 65 can take same-day round trips for
2 Euros, 50 each. You can't beat that anywhere else we know of. And Belgium is so small, you can visit many cities that
way wherever you are. The train ride was about an hour and that left a lot of time to visit in Brussels.
Everyone will
tell you that the Grand Place where there is the city hall and the main tourist office. This is a very nice area to walk and
gawk around. We also visited the
Museum of Musical Instruments and ate lunch in a beautiful room overlooking Brussels, and then
the
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, a very large, grand building full of beautiful paintings and sculptures.
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