Making Brussels Intresting – A Day of Making Brussels Intresting

Making Brussels Interesting – with TravelMagic and Brussels Airlines
A Day Making Brussels Interesting

• Travel? TravelMagic!
• Saturday Morning fun and games
• SN2050 Birmingham Airport to Brussels National Airport
• TravelMagic overview
• The Pantone Hotel
• A Day in Brussels (THIS SECTION)
• Back to Brussels Airport, Brussels Airlines Lounge
• SN2047 Brussels National Airport to Birmingham Airport
• Magical?

A day doing Brussels things.

With the new day, I skipped the brunch and rested in. After finishing up at the hotel, I headed off to the Atomium via the Metro. I could had bothered to dump my luggage at the hotel, but I didn’t – mainly as I didn’t fancy wandering all the way back to the hotel to pick my bag up later.

So I headed to the Metro, weaving my way past all the bikes as it was car free day in Brussels – and the bikes were out in force which made it fun to walk around.

Even handbikes were out in force.

Now, you’d expect a lot of pictures of the Atomium wouldn’t you? It’s a landmark, symbol of Expo 58 and all that.

However, a quick read indicated the Atomium building is protected by copyright too according to http://blog.atomium.be/#/AuthorsRights.aspx as Glass,Steel and Stone http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/BuildingDetail/42.php found out. I also had a run-in with the owners on Twitter, and rather than give the satisfaction of giving them the chance to hunt an image down, I present this.

See: http://www.chillingeffects.org/fairuse/notice.cgi?NoticeID=760  and  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium

As I’m not a fan of angry Belgium people, I took my pictures for my own personal archive, (which I’ve only retained on the server – they’re gone from my laptop and phone… a shame.. but… well), and headed back down to the city centre.

Rather than taking the Metro straight back to the city centre – I decided to take an adventure, and take the tram back to Midi. Whilst it did take longer than the Metro, it provided a much more satisfying way of travelling.

Not to be confused with the band.

And provided far better pictures than the Atomium as I think we can agree.

Empty Streets… just lots of bikes…

Cycles from Brussels Villo! hire scheme at a parking station

Gotcha!

Fruits and Veg on sale…

The tram made its way into the dark, and soon it was nearing Midi.

The tram – whilst one of the older ones was reasonably quick, and a much better ride into town – and well patronised due to the tram and metro being free that day too.

The tram on its way.

I hoped onto a train at Midi to Central (mainly as I was lazy and didn’t know the way on the tram/metro). A few minutes later, I was at Centrall.

As I was near the Grande Place, I headed over to the chaos that was the Grandemarket – as there was a festival of Belgium arts and food was going on.

Although I’m still working out how “Puppet on a String” by Sandy Shaw and “It’s a long way to Tipperary” is remotely Belgium. Still. They were dancing along happily to it.

Of course, I wanted to see if the most disappointing sights in the world were doing a roaring trade. They were. What am I referring to? The Manneken Pis and Jeanneke Pis.

Manneken Pis with the crowds… WHY??? 

Jeanneke Pis

Why these are popular is still beyond me.

Meanwhile, I caught up with the world and watch the bikes everywhere.

The bikes were everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It showed that a city could block cars out for day (or if cars could drive, max of 30km per hour… which for some would be a shock!)

I saw at one point the clock passed 4:30pm. It was time to make tracks back to Brussels Central Station – where there a convenient entrance near the Grande Place

Next: Back to Brussels National Airport and Brussels Airlines Lounge.

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