Any guesses as to where I might be referring to?
Yep-Belgium!
My flight to Oslo included a 10 hour layover in Brussels and it was everything I ever could have asked for from my first double digit hour layover.
I’ll start by saying I’m not usually a big fan of layovers. Mostly because I’m frustrated by the fact that I have been in Germany about 18 times in my life without having left the airport, and layovers are a sore subject for me.
I realized that I just haven’t been doing them right until now.
See, the key is to pick a small city and concentrate on the important things…in this case:
Belgian Waffles. Belgian chocolate. Belgian beer. Belgian fries.
Oh and the statue of the little boy peeing.
That was my entire itinerary. Sounds like the recipe for the best sight seeing day ever, amirite? (Except for the little boy peeing, I don’t understand why it’s such a famous statue. Mannekin Pis- look it up.)
First off, the city is a super easy 30 minute train ride from the airport and the train takes you almost directly into the main square.
I have seen my fair share of European city squares, and while I’m biased towards Kraków’s and Prague’s which are just gorgeous, the one in Brussels gets a solid ten from me.
It’s teeny tiny, but decorated entirely with gold.
I like gold. I like it a lot.
We snapped a few photos (okay fine, I snapped a couple dozen) and then explored the smaller side streets. By explored, I really mean I got waffles and then walked from one chocolate shop to another.
And before you know it, we had crossed off all the important sights and it was time for a beer.
Those of you who’ve ever gotten drinks with me (okay, so like a lot of you) know that I absolutely do not like beer. But- Belgian beer totally swayed me. (Hehe get it? Cause I was totally swaying after just one of those 8.5% suckers.)
My father, brother and I ducked into a Delirium beer house, and I exited a convert- newly obsessed with Delirium Red.
We ended our city tour with thick cut and freshly prepared Belgian fries (washed down with another beer, Floris, another new love of mine) and floated on back to the airport for the second leg of our flight.
If you ever have a chance to have a longer layover in Brussels, I highly recommend it. It’s an indulgent experience, that’s for sure.
