En Brussels

Two months ago I went to The Netherlands for work. My colleagues and I spent the weekend before our work trip in Brussels: despite two of them having been there before, we all agreed due to the many things to see and the city's proximity to The Netherlands, it was the ideal location for us to spend two days.

Upon our arrival, we began walking around the city center. We started in the Grand Place (Palace), where there was some sort of ceremony taking place (we never did find out exactly what was going on). The buildings and grandeur of the ceremony were simply beautiful.

 

After our day spent in Brussels, we walked back through the plaza, which let me grab some photos of the beautiful old buildings lit up at night.

Day two of our adventures in Brussels took us away from the Grand Place and towards a different side of the city's center, where we saw a number of churches (I have a lot of photos of the interiors, but haven't really included those here). We also came across some lovely statues, including one outside of the Smurf museum!

 

I had forgotten that the Smurf legend is Belgian. The store/museum was great, with tons of Smurf memorabilia, most of it not in English, so it was even more fun to peruse because we couldn't be certain what the books/signs were saying. I did love these Smurf statues.

 

Just walking the streets of Brussels made for some beautiful photography. The streets were quaint, and yet full of much to take in. It's almost like we'd gone back in time on a street like this!

We ended our trip at the Cathedral, where spring flowers were just starting to show.

The inside was absolutely beautiful, with one of the largest pipe organs I've ever seen!

There were some...interesting decorations in places. I don't really expect to see this type of statuary in the main part of the church! This was carved around the main staircase where the priests can go up to the second floor to do readings out closer to the attendees.

I did pay 1 euro to light a candle, as I knew my husband would appreciate the gesture, and I think that lighting a candle in memory, any memory, is a nice thing to do. The one I lit is the new (complete) one on the lower right.