BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

Dates: 28.02.2018 – 04.03.2018

RIX – CRL

28.02.2018: We bought our flights to Brussels for €9.99 during the Black Friday sale in November, so now we’re off for a quick visit to see what Belgium is all about. Or at least get a small taste of it, because this will be the first visit to Belgium for both me and Madara. The flight is scheduled for 20:00. I didn’t even take the day off work. After work, I quickly run home, eat something and we head to the airport. We arrive with plenty of time. We have no checked luggage, so everything is quick and stress-free.
We land at Charleroi Airport shortly before 23:00. It’s around 50 km from Brussels itself, so we still have another hour by bus before reaching the city. The bus ticket is almost twice as expensive as our flight here. At least the bus is comfortable. That’s something you always need to remember with cheap Ryanair tickets – there’s a good chance you’ll be flying into an airport nowhere near the actual city. Still, flying halfway across Europe for less than €10 sounds tempting enough. I even manage to get a short nap.

28.02.2018: Right on schedule, we arrive at Brussels Central Station, but we still need to reach our neighbourhood in Laeken. We barely, barely manage to catch the last tram. Around 20 minutes later we reach our stop, followed by another ten-minute walk to the accommodation.
This is my first time booking accommodation through Airbnb instead of Booking.com, which I had always used before. Everything works out fine. The host comes downstairs in his pyjamas at around one in the morning when we finally arrive and lets us in. The room is relatively cold, but temperature is probably the last thing that can surprise us after five years living on Krūzes Street. At home in our Riga apartment it’s always cold – during winter nights, when the fireplace isn’t burning, the temperature can drop to around +10°C. We’re well trained.
We have a tiny one-room attic apartment. Super small, but everything we need is there. You just can’t sit up too quickly in bed unless you want to hit your head on the sloping roof, and in the bathroom there’s basically enough room to rotate around your own axis.

BRUSSELS: WAFFLES

01.03.2018: The Atomium – the giant molecule – is relatively close to us, so that’s where we head first. For the average tourist, this is probably one of Brussels’ best-known attractions after the peeing boy. It’s pretty cold outside, but so far that isn’t slowing us down much. We reach the Atomium but our inner cheapskates take over and we decide not to pay €15 each to go up into one of the spheres. Somehow I don’t feel like we missed anything life-changing.
Next, we head towards the centre to see the peeing boy. I imagined he would be slightly bigger, but the little guy is maybe 30 cm tall at best. Still, he manages to attract huge crowds. We don’t particularly feel like hanging around in the crowd, so we take a few quick photos and move on.
It really is bloody cold today though. We’re walking around with frozen red noses. Every now and then we need to duck into a shop or café just to warm up.
Waffles, waffles and more waffles. My favourite is hot caramel, while Madara goes for white chocolate and fruit. Looks like we’re going to be on a waffle diet. They’re sold absolutely everywhere – fruit, whipped cream, ice cream, chocolate, caramel. Can’t decide? There are versions with everything piled on at once.
Before heading home, I buy a selection of small Belgian beers for research purposes. Relatively expensive – 0.33L bottles start from around €2. I then have to carry a backpack containing eight beers for about 5 km, and my shoulders definitely notice it afterwards. But sacrifices have to be made in the name of research. Damn… and I don’t like any of them! Seriously. Apparently Belgian beer just doesn’t match my taste.
Altogether, we walk almost 23 km today, zigzagging through Brussels. Basically, we complete the Brussels classics in one day – giant molecule, peeing boy, waffles and beer. All using nothing but our own legs. We’ll leave the European Parliament for the final day.

ANTWERP, BELGIUM

02.03.2018: Today we’re taking the train to Antwerp. First, though, we still have to walk around 5 km to Brussels Central Station. Buying tickets from the machine is ridiculously easy. The journey takes around 40 minutes in a very comfortable train.
The first attraction in Antwerp is the central railway station itself. Historic and impressive both in terms of structural engineering and design. Basically a showcase of steel-structure connections. The station is huge as well – trains arrive on 22 tracks spread across three levels.
After only 30–40 minutes walking around Antwerp, I already get the feeling that if tourists come to Riga to see Alberta Street because of its special architecture, Antwerp is basically made up of endless Alberta Streets.
After weaving through the smaller streets, we finally reach the time when we can check into our accommodation. I found another tiny one-room apartment through Airbnb. The owner, a girl around our age, has gone to the countryside for the weekend and simply rents out her own room while she’s away. From our part of Europe, that feels slightly strange, but in Western Europe – why not? The apartment key is simply left in the mailbox outside. Take it and make yourselves at home.
We rest for a while – power nap. Later in the evening, we’ll head out for round two. We should find somewhere nice for dinner. By the end of today, we’ve walked another 25 km. The legs are starting to feel it, but what can you do – we’re pedestrians.

ANTWERP: SNOW

02.03.2018: We begin our evening walk with coffee. A tasty latte for me and cappuccino for Madara. The surprise comes when we leave the café – it’s snowing quite heavily. Apparently that doesn’t happen very often here. The news has supposedly even advised people not to leave home unless necessary. Worth adding that winter tyres aren’t compulsory in Belgium.
I tried arranging coffee with Agija, a former high-school classmate who now lives here in Antwerp. Unfortunately, she already has other plans, so we spend the evening wandering around the snowy city by ourselves.
Around 20:00, we’re back home. Our legs are tired, so that’s enough walking for today. We do find one final burst of motivation to leave the apartment at 20:50 when the wine runs out and the shop closes at 21:00. The problem is solved very efficiently at a little shop across the street.

ANTWERP – BRUSSELS

03.03.2018: Before heading back to Brussels today, we want to visit the MAS Museum, which has a panoramic terrace overlooking Antwerp. On the way, we walk through some kind of red-light street where half-naked girls are posing in shop windows.
At the MAS Museum, everyone going to the exhibitions – or people like us who only want to visit the terrace – has to leave their belongings in the cloakroom. Access to the terrace itself is free. Even though it’s foggy and visibility isn’t great, it’s still worth going up.
Now we slowly head towards the station to catch the train back to Brussels.

BRUSSELS: EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

03.03.2018: Once we leave the station in Brussels, we head towards the European Parliament. The final sightseeing box to tick on this trip. Madara refuses to play the flag game – identify as many flags as possible within a limited number of guesses – so our investigation ends once we find the Latvian flag. Obviously, you can’t just walk inside the Parliament without a tour, but we’re not desperate to do that anyway. We’ll leave it for the next Brussels visit.
Turns out Brussels doesn’t only have a peeing boy – it also has a peeing girl. We walk to see her too, although completely by accident. Interesting. What is it with Belgians and peeing children?
Signs of weakness are starting to appear in the form of blisters on my feet. Once we reach our final accommodation, Hotel Belvue, we rest for a while. We’ve already completed another half-marathon distance today. Later, we’ll head outside once more.
There’s a mission. We need to find proper Belgian fries. Actual freshly cut potatoes rather than frozen fries thrown straight into the fryer. Turns out that isn’t so easy. Everywhere seems to serve the normal frozen version boiled in oil. That’s not what I’m after. After a long search, we finally find a fries kiosk where potato wedges are being cooked in an enormous pan right in front of us. We destroy two cones of potatoes.
Before bed, we sit for a while on the hotel’s sixth-floor terrace. Not for very long though – it’s still pretty cold outside. It is March, after all…

CRL – RIX

04.03.2018: Today we head towards the Old Town without any specific goals or routes. We have a little time before leaving for the airport, so we can wander around the city or eat another waffle. We also need to buy a packet to take home, otherwise everyone in the family WhatsApp chat has spent the whole trip being tortured with waffle photos without getting anything themselves.
We walk past Manneken Pis once more and discover that today the little guy has been dressed in different clothes.
After that, we slowly start heading towards the bus that will take us to the airport.
Since we’re flying Ryanair, there’s no particularly exciting flight ahead because nothing to eat or drink is included. We land in Riga around 22:00, and by the time we finally get home it’s already after 23:00. And tomorrow we have to go to work…
Overall, a good long-weekend trip. Food made it slightly more expensive than planned. There weren’t any huge “super wow” moments, but those are generally harder to find in cities than in national parks anyway. Both cities are beautiful and definitely worth visiting at least once.

Total trip costs
Transport (flights, public transport, etc.): ~190 EUR
Living expenses (accommodation, meals, etc.): ~340 EUR
Entertainment (entrance fees, souvenirs, etc.): ~75 EUR
Total costs: ~605 EUR
Cost per person per day: 61 EUR

RIX – CRL