BRUSSELS, MUSSELS AND SPROUTS!

Brugge is so close to Brussels we decided to spend the day there, a lazy one hour trip in the fast train. Our seniors cards reducing the fare to a paltry ten euros seventy for both of us, return! We had been joking along the way, about Brussels sprouts and mussels in Brussels. There is no doubt that mussels or moules, as they call them in these parts, are the flavour d'jour! You can have them in more ways than your imagination can muster - in fact we are dining out tonight on mussels, more later!


So it was no surprise then to find some graphic representations in Brussels;

Sprouts, Brusselicious as they say above!

Mussel art?

The golden mussel

There is more to Brussels than mussels and sprouts, there are some beautiful old buildings, squares and cathedrals to keep the traipsing tourist happy!

Grand-Place. Grote Markt

Being the European capital, there was some kind of important meeting being held in this building with heaps of security and limos parked outside!

Who knows, they could have solved all of Europe's financial woes while we were there? We've certainly made our contribution!

The cathedral of St Michaelis and St Gudulae, a welcome shelter

 for us from a passing storm!

It's hard to believe but this statue is one of Brussel's biggest tourist attractions, the "Manneken Pis" is replicated in many forms, including chocolate - what else?

Or should I say smallest - here's a close up for the short sighted

We have been agonising over our purchase of Belgium chocolate. It had to be be something good, not a franchise chocolate ordinaire! We window shopped for as long as we could resist, and found 'Mary', a chocolatier who has a 'Belgian Royal Warrant' and has been crafting chocolate creations since 1919. We were so impressed we forked out Forty Seven Euros for what you see below! The problem now is plucking up the courage to eat it!

Dark chocolate with almonds and 'Fruit de Nice'

OK, we're mussled out - two HUGE servings of the best mussels we have ever had. One in a Belgium beer sauce the other in a pernod sauce. We also learnt that the local custom is to eat your mussels with an open shell, like a pincer -quaint eh?

 Rog with new haircut and pincers in hand.

Scene of the crime.