Belgium

This morning I had in mind to hit the park with the Atomium and Mini-Europe.

We got there at opening time but decided not to go to the top of the Atom. It was built for a worlds fair and you can take an elevator to the top circle. It was advertised as claustrophic and there was a line so we skipped that tour.
Before touring Europe we stopped to have a waffle for breakfast.
Mini-Europe is a collection of 350 miniature models of the most famous sites in Europe. They are 1:25 size and very realistic.
In a about 2 hours we visited.....

Copenhagen, Denmark,

Big Ben and Parliament in London,

The Arc de Triumph in Paris,

a Bull Ring in Spain,

Gondolas in Venice,

the Berlin Wall,

the astronomical clock in Praque,

and I got a better photo of the parthenon than I actually got in Athens.
Brussels is heavy on business as the center of the EU and the NATO headquarters but was still a fun weekend away.

Happy Halloween from Brussels, Belgium.
Brussels is about 6 hours from home so we left Friday night, hit the new PX in Ramstein and the Macaroni Grill. I had trouble reserving a room there so we ended up going to Spangdalem Air Base for the night. We arrived in Brussels by 1230 today and found our place, Hotel Bloom. It was a very modern and nice hotel for only 70 euros per night. It was a 20 minute walk from the center of town and that happened to be down a shopping street

Our first purchase was Belgian chocolate. They are so into their Mannequin Pis that they have him in all different flavored chocolate. They also had chocolate potato chips like Pringles that we had to try.

Grand Place is the center of town with the Town Hall, restaurants and a flower market. We sat here and had one of those famous Belgian Beers. Eventually we wanted to see what the hype was with this little mannequin of a boy peeing so we headed that way.

On the way we passed a The Waffle Factory and got another Belgian Specialty. Our waffles were piled high with strawberries, chocolate and banana. We hit some lace and tapestry shops which are famous in Brussels.

Eventually we came upon a crowd on the street and saw what we had been waiting for....the Mannequin Pis. All the assessments were right - he is disappointing.

This little mannequin had been given over 700 outfits by various countries so I was excited to see what he would be wearing. I was sad to find out it was ....nothing! Because of this we decided to go to the museum in the Kings House to see the outfits on display there. It was hilarious to see the costumes he has worn including an Elvis Pisley suit donated by the US.

After this we headed to the comic strip museum because my beloved Smurfs are from Belgium. As it turned out they didn't play that much of part in the museum.

Tin Tin seems to be famous with the Belgians and the museum went thru the making of comics.

When we finally got to the Smurfs they had a poster with all 100 listed - however no Female Smurf. They also showed a little model of their house, hefty's work out equipment and what I think is Gargumels Cookbook calling for a few Smurfs!

For dinner we had the famous mussels in Brussels at Chez Leon. It is a bit of a touristy place but along the restaurant Row it was the busiest. They crank out tons of pots of steamed mussels.
After all the walking we did today we were exhausted and headed to the beautiful room in Hotel Bloom.

The market didn’t seem to start quite as early as 0600 but they were in the process of setting up. We bought an old sled with a painting on the front from a woman before she was even set up. It was from France about 1830’s.

The market is set up in a gym, on floor of a parking garage, and up and down lots of streets. We seemed to like a lot of stuff from france. We scored with a buffet from Belgium. The timeframe can’t be nailed down but it was made somewhere between 1875 and 1915. We plan to use it as a bar. We also found a lamp table that matched the design of the buffet. We did pretty well and had fun bargaining…yes, mom – I did!

We have to go back in 8 weeks to pick up our furniture (oh darn) so we left for home with a relatively empty car.

For this weekend Curt and I decided to finally order some furniture we saw at a Bazaar in Ramstein. The furniture store was in Belgium so we made the 4 hour drive across another border to St. Vith, Belgium. The store is called MK Mobel Drings-Maraite and has 60,000 square feet of furniture. We ordered some stuff for the living room and were served tea and little tiny éclairs. The store does a good business with the military based on the English speaking people with short hair cuts shopping around next to us. The good news was even though they were in Belgium they still took the VAT form. Maybe they are close enough to the German border that it doesn’t matter ?? (about 1 hour)
Next stop was another hour away at Tongeren, Belgium. It is supposed to be one of the oldest towns in Belgium and holds one of the biggest antique markets in Europe every Sunday. Start time for the market is 0600 so it was recommended to get their the night before.

The town is much bigger than I expected with a long shopping street and a beautiful cathedral. We shopped and had dinner with of course waffles for dessert. The other must in Belgium is to try some of their many beers. A bunch were tried but the best was the blueberry beer! It was fabulous with the waffles.