Both: Hey everyone!
Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.
Greg: This update, we are going to talk about our time in Brussels, where we did our own little self-led chocolate and waffles tour.
Jen: The first day we got to Brussels, we got there a little bit later in the day, so we really only had time for dinner and just kind of unwind at the hotel. But the next day, we spent the whole day exploring the town until we had to leave the following morning.
Greg: Yeah, so before we started out with a bunch of chocolate and waffles, we thought we should get real breakfast. And at the café, it dawned on us that we had really come to appreciate two main things about breakfast while we were traveling in Europe.
Jen: I was a huge fan of the orange juice all over Europe. They use high quality oranges that are always freshly squeezed and they don't add anything extra.
Greg: We also really took to croissant and pain au chocolat while we were there. And it was like, no, we don't want toast. We want croissant. Or if you want an add-on to a meal, like breakfast. Chocolate croissant. You want a dessert? Croissant.
Jen: So basically, the moral of this story is, if croissants are available, that's what you choose.
Greg: And I just like to say…CROISSANT.
Jen: (laughs) Yes.
Greg: So from the cafe, we began our own little chocolate waffle tour. Because normally we'll get a guided tour so that they take care of where we go and when and we just follow along and have fun. But all of the places that we saw were taking you all around Grand-Place or Grote Markt. And our hotel was in a neighborhood that aligned right next to Grand-Place. It was in Grand Sablon. So we said, we can do this ourselves! And we plotted out a bunch of places walking towards Grand-Place.
Jen: It allowed us to not have time constraints or have to pick what they give you as far as tasting goes. So we came up with a list of about seven or eight places that we wanted to stop, which we'll list for you in the transcript so you can check them out. And we'll just talk about the highlights.
**Jen and Greg’s Brussels Chocolate and Waffle Tour**
Greg: And there's a lot of highlights. Firstly…all of the chocolate.
Jen: So much chocolate. Marshmallow cakes that are a lot like pinwheels. So it had a graham cracker crust, marshmallow, and it was covered in chocolate. I love chocolate covered marshmallows. We got an orange sea salt chocolate, which I ate because Greg is not a fan of sea salt. We got —
Greg: — No. Sea salt on savory dishes is terrific. I don't like all the salty sweet stuff.
Jen: So if anybody's looking for gift ideas for Greg, do not buy him sea salted caramel. (laughs)
Greg: No, no chocolate covered pretzels. None of that garbage.
Jen: (laughs)
We also really enjoyed the first shop that we went into because we were able to chat with one of the locals. She gave us tons of tips for other chocolate shops and places to try.
Greg: Indeed. Ah, another place that we enjoyed was called Neuhaus, which was the place that is credited with inventing the praline.
Jen: All you South Louisiana people listening in…it's not a praline like I was thinking it was. So a praline in Europe is more of a creamy filling inside of a chocolate shell. And we tried several of those.
Greg: Yeah, the most prominent has a hazelnut filling.
Jen: Yeah, there's so much hazelnut in Europe.
Greg: Yes. But in the case of pralines, hazelnut filling was pretty tasty.
Jen: Yeah, a couple of the other ones we had were, like, a vanilla praline that was inside of a dark chocolate and then a strawberry filling inside of a white chocolate. So they were all really good.
Greg: Our next location was a café. It's called Maison Dandoy. Their chocolate shops do just chocolates. But if you want fresh waffles, you have to go to this specific location. That's what they do is fresh waffles.
Jen: Yeah, so there's two different kinds, and the first one was a Brussels waffle, and we know those in America as a Belgian waffle. It's not the same as what you see on maybe a continental breakfast that has the waffle maker. It's more of a crisp and light waffle, kind of like what you would find in a frozen food section at the grocery store, but just way better quality. And that waffle, we decided, was better with toppings, like strawberries and vanilla ice cream.
Greg: We tried some of it without the toppings on it, and it is a very good waffle on its own, but it is much better with toppings.
Jen: (laughs) Yeah, and the second one we had was called a Liège waffle. And that one's more of a dense batter with sugar pearls in it that caramelize when it cooks. And they make crunchy little pops of goodness. That one we decided it was best eaten plain.
Greg: Yeah, and we did try the Liège waffle with some of the strawberries and ice cream we had on the Brussels waffle. But it was kind of too much. Liège waffle plain is so good. It's every bit as good as the other kind.
Jen: Yeah, I'd love one of those right now, actually.
Greg: I would happily take either one.
Jen: Yeah, you can't go wrong either way. (laughs)
Greg: Right. From the waffles, we continued toward Grand-Place, but we kind of needed a break - no more eating chocolates. So we took this moment to do more sightseeing of Grand-Place. Well…it was pretty great!
Jen: Yeah, it was. (laughs)
So you walk into this huge square and are surrounded by these grand buildings that are Baroque-style or Gothic-style. And one of them is the Brussels Town Hall that was built between 1401 and 1455. And it's actually considered one of the finest examples of civil Gothic architecture in Europe.
We also saw three separate wedding parties at the town hall. So Friday was apparently a very popular day to get married.
Greg: Yeah. Not all at once, though.
Jen: Right. So the end of our chocolate and waffle tour, I think, is worth mentioning because that's where we got to visit the Pierre Marcolini store.
Greg: Yeah, the building really drew both of us in from the very beginning because there are beautiful flower sculptures on the outside. It's very colorful. The building itself has an older architectural feel. Inside, a little more modern, very clean, but also very attractive. And the smell of all the chocolate really just draws you in.
Jen: Yeah, so there we decided to try some vanilla chocolates.
Greg: But of all the places we went, none of it really gets to the level of that vanilla tart from Pierre Hermé on the Champs-Élysées.
Jen: (laughs) Yeah, that tart was so good. I still dream about that thing.
Greg: Yeah. So that was a terrific day in Brussels. The next morning really made us pay for all of the terrific experience of the previous day, because probably the worst train station experience we had in all of our travel in Europe.
Jen: Yeah...
So Brussels Midi train station, it's one of the central train locations that connects several major cities across Europe, and it has a reputation for being super chaotic and frustrating travelers with its layout, confusion, and lack of communication.
Greg: Right. Plus, the seating is very sparse, and it's very uncomfortable. The bathroom that we had to pay three euros to use was filthy and gross. And overall, I never want to go through Brussels Midi train station ever again. Also, we found out - after the fact - it's a fairly dangerous train station come nighttime and overnight.
Jen: Yeah, I'm thankful that we found that after we were done with Brussels Midi, for sure.
Greg: Yeah.
Jen: I am usually the more anxious traveler of the two of us, and I noticed that when we were sitting down, Greg seemed a little bit more on edge than he normally does. He kept getting up and looking at monitors and shifting in his seat, and I couldn't really figure out why.
Greg: We're sitting in Brussels Midi train station, and I began to notice things like security, uniformed police officers all walking around. Normally, you don't see that in Europe. Or we had not.
Jen: Right.
Greg: Well, I saw them blocking platforms. And when people would go to enter the platform, they would turn them away. The monitor for our platform had not changed, and the train that was listed on the monitor should have left 20 minutes before. There should have been another one or two trains to load and leave before our train has shown up, and our train was probably going to arrive, like, any minute at that point.
Jen: Right. And it's still not giving us updates saying the train's been delayed. So we're not sure what's going on —
Greg: — which was very frustrating. Eventually, I told Jennifer, "Hang on, I'm just going to walk right up there." And unfortunately, the conversations with that security were not happening in English.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: So I did not pick up much. But once they were done, he looked at me, and I just said, "Parlez-vous l’anglais?" And he said, "Yes." And I was very grateful.
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: And I asked him if we would be allowed up that platform when our train arrived. And he said, "No, you're going to need to go back that way. And on the right, you'll see a hallway. Turn and follow the signs."
Jen: We go down this hallway and it is packed shoulder to shoulder with probably what felt like over a thousand people. I think it was over a thousand people. And the hallway itself is about 20 feet wide. There is no ventilation, so it is stifling in there and completely chaotic.
Greg: Everybody's miserable, and no one knew what was going on. They didn't tell anybody anything. Security wouldn't say anything. There were no announcements. And we never found out what happened.
Jen: And so the police would start yelling out different destinations like "Knokke" and "Ghent." And that would cause people behind us to shout those cities back at them and push forward because they thought, "Oh, my train's here. I need to get there as quick as possible." And there is nowhere to move.
Greg: Yet they continue to push, and you're getting squeezed to the people in front of you who are getting squeezed to the people in front of them. And if there had been a hard barricade in front of the very beginning, those people probably would have been crushed or suffocated.
Jen: Yeah. So needless to say, this just heightened the frustration in that hallway and made everything so much worse.
Greg: Plus, they would call "Ghent," and they would literally let four or five people go up the platform and then stop everything again. And you'd wait another 10 minutes.
Jen: So when they called "Knokke" again, we knew that that was probably our train because we were going to Bruges, and Knokke was the termination point for that train line. So we were kind of close up to the front at this point, so we started to push our way up forward as well.
Greg: Yeah. And I go up the stairs to the platform and it's empty. And I turn around and I don't see Jennifer.
Jen: (laughs) Because you got through and they tried to stop me. And I said, "NO, I'm with him." And I pointed at you, and they kind of turned around and looked. I walked by, and I got about five or six steps up the platform, and another security guard stepped in front of me. And I just looked at her and I said, "NO." And I walked right past.
And I have to tell you, I was pretty proud of myself for that because I'm not usually assertive like that. But I had packed my sassy pants that day.
Greg: Yeah, I was really proud of you, too, because like you said, it's not in your nature to be so assertive. But that's really what that moment called for. In any case, once she got up there, we strapped the backpacks on our backs and we tried to walk forward. But every coach had a security guard who just looked at us and gave us that universal hand signal for "keep walking."
Jen: (laughs) So we did. And every train car we walked by was full. People were standing up, even standing in, like, the doorways to go between cars. Until finally, we saw this one security guard who was leaving her spot, and I asked her, "Hey, can we get on that car right there?" And she looked at us in pure defeat and just said, "Sure."
Greg: Every seat full, all of the aisles between seats, people standing. Fortunately, there was a couple of little spots where we could stand, and about five or ten minutes later, it finally started to go. But we really had no idea where this train was going.
Jen: Yeah. And it kind of just made you stop and think for a minute about what it must have felt like back during World War II for people who were fleeing the Nazi army, who just went to the train station and then - not knowing where they were going - found whatever train they could get on, hoping it was bringing them to safety.
Greg: Yeah, that's not to equate what we experienced to what they did. But what we went through was so chaotic and our anxiety level was through the roof. And it just really brought home to us how scary and confusing it must have been for them because it was even worse.
Jen: Yeah, for sure. Thankfully…we did wind up getting to where we needed to go.
Greg: Yeah, so we arrived in Bruges, and it was a welcome sight because it was calm and serene compared to what we had just gone through to get on that train. So our next update will be about our time in Bruges.
Jen: Yeah, I really liked Bruges because everything was very walkable and it kind of had this romantic charm about it. We did a riverboat tour and I got to eat moules-frites.
Greg: So we will talk about that more in the next update. And thanks for checking in.
Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!
