Candace again, helping Jason out with another entry. today was an EPIC day of Travel! Woke up in Amsterdam, spent our lunchtime in Brussels, dinner in Frankfurt and finishing out day by getting on overnight train to wake up in Interlaken
Off the train in Brussels we immediately dropped off our bags at the station for a quick "taste" of Belgium… Belgium, known for it's beer, we had to scoot right into a famous cafe that served an assortment of beers on tap.
While Jason was busy taste testing Tripel's, Lambics and Trappiestes beers I bellied up to try out the infamous belgium waffle. They had all sorts of toppings to chooses from, the strawberry, bananas, and dark chocolate was great. The waffle itself was golden on one side with some sort of crispy burnt caramelized dark chocolate coating on the other side, this must be what makes them special.
Made it out of the beer cafe and off into the crowded walkways toward the main square. You know when you see gobs of people the prices of things could be inflated, nonetheless we stumble upon a beer "store" with over 350 belgium beers in the bottle. they were fairly priced so Jason needed only to ask "What are your best beers can you not find in the states?" and the guy who worked there asked a few questions to see what types of beer he liked and helped us pick out a 6 pack sampling for later. He even helped us out with a musical selection to go with our beers :)
Made it to the square, crowded with people but that was over powered by the 6 buildings surrounding the square that were all remarkably done. One a museum, another a city hall, and the other ones were filled with restaurants and chocolate shops on the ground floor.
Found Maitre chocolatier shop and enough said. Delicious chocolates, ones filled with candied orange rinds, earl grey mouse and even chocolate brittle with hazelnuts that the lady behind the counter recommended
The square was so cool we decided to do as the locals do and have a seat on the sun warmed warn out cobblestone for our final 30 minutes before picking up a few groceries and shoveling off to catch the train to Frankfurt.
Couple notes from Jason here - the Belgiums are famous for their beer which is why I wanted to do all the sampling and also grabbed that customized six pack for later from that super-cool dude in the Beer store right off the Grand Palace Square. Its also why I kept asking the Dutch for Belgian beer ;) I now know that when in the Netherlands, I should just enjoy the Dutch beer because it's great as well. The beers I tried in the Bar I'd picked out were good, but their specialty was their Lambic beers, which surprisingly I didn't care much for, though Candace enjoyed them. I must admit that at the time I wasn't looking for a fruity type of beer and that's perhaps why.
The Grand Palace Square is the main thing to see in Brussels and is, as Candace mentioned beautiful in its combination of a square with 6 beautiful and intricately carved buildings as seen in above picture. Sitting on the smooth cobblestone, we enjoyed the sun, the buildings, and the people walking around. It was definitely entertaining to watch a couple of ladies eating ice cream next to us like they had never had it before in their lives, dripping everywhere, and unable to rotate the cone I suppose. As well we saw some other people pose like models for eachother against the backdrop of some of the buildings. Reading our books or just sitting back, shoes off,
special beer cracked open, we basked in the sun and took it all in.
As the time on our travel plans soon creeped into our relaxation we started our trek through Downtown Belgium to the metro and then to the train station. Our goal being to make it to Interlaken again. At this point we have accomplished all our major goals for the trip and now it's time to look at the weather for the next day all across Europe and go where its going to be nice for a couple days. =) With a few places in mind, Interlaken came back up as a place we had a bit of unfinished business in. In Amsterdam we talked about it and I was checking the weather, noticing it hadn't rained in a few days. This WOULD give us the chance to go Canyoning, pending the water level, which without rain in a few days it should be good to go. We also liked the idea of spending a day in Gimmelwald and checking out the worlds 1st revolving restaurant so famously displayed in one of the 1st 007 Bond movies. We figured Brussels would be a good stop along the way and found a connection to Frankfurt that would launch us on an overnight train from Frankfurt, Germany back to Interlaken in Switzerland the next day. As it continues to all work out as planned, we head off to Frankfurt for dinner and a train.
Unbelievable! Wishing we could trek along with you! Love Mom & Dad F.
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