Brussels

Welcome to the capitol of the European Union! Brussels is a GRAND place--grand parks, buildings, and city scenes everywhere.

There are also loads of intriguing museum options. We went to the Magritte Museum (really great, though no pictures allowed) and the Coudenberg Museum, which gives access to the underground ruins of former versions of the royal palace that now stands above ground.

One thing I kept reading about Brussels is that its main square is perhaps the most beautiful in Europe. That's a pretty tough category to judge, if you ask me, but I'd definitely call Brussels' Grand Place a contendah'!

Perhaps the most beautiful part of our visit, though, was the lovely people we got to stay with and visit. M and her family hosted us in the cozy village of Tervuren, just outside of the city, and took us into the city for a tour...

...that necessarily included one of Brussels's most famous tourist stops: a fountain called Manneken Pis (Peeing Boy). It was hard to get a picture that didn't include twenty other people taking a picture of the same thing. :) At first it just seems like something to giggle at, but try Googling it--there's actually a fascinating history involved.

And we also got to have dinner one night with E, an Italian living in Belgium who I met at the South Pole earlier this year (try to figure that one out) and her boyfriend, F. I love how this picture shows the typically (I'm told) chilly, blustery Belgian weather.