Day 15: On to Brussels

This morning we got up early to take the TGV to Brussels, the capital city of Belgium. Yesterday was the last day of school for all of the French children so today is what they call "La Grande Sortie" which means "the great departure." Basically on this day all of France is heading out on vacation, so it's not really a great day to head to the train station. Fortunately for us, however, we were taking the train north and therefore using the northern train station, so it wasn't too bad as most people were going to points south and east.

We had a quick train ride, stored our bags and began walking into town to visit La Grande Place, an ancient and very ornate town square of Brussels. The kids were very excited to discover that waffles are a big Belgian speciality, and before long they were devouring some heavily-topped waffles. We saw two bridal parties at the ancient town hall and got some lunch in the square. They were cleaning up some giant party mess in the square and we assumed that there had been a huge watch party the night before when Belgium had played Brazil in the World Cup.

From to there we began walking toward the apartment where Gwen and Phil lived for a year in 1969-1970. On the way we saw the royal palace (Belgium still has a royal family) and some other cool landmarks. Before too long, we arrived at 85 Rue de Throne. The building was relatively unchanged since Gwen and Phil lived here and it was very fascinating to think of them, so young and living abroad at this modest boarding house. We were glad to hop on to the Metro to check in to our hotel as it was getting hot out and we had already walked quite a bit.

I had noticed a flyer for something called "The Smurf Experience." We came to Europe when I was nine and a singular pleasure that I had was enjoying all the Smurf merchandise that was available at that time, when the Smurfs were very popular in the US as well. Well, the Smurfs are alive and well here in Belgium and it turns out that the Smurfs were also originally created in Belgium. Obviously, in order to have a unique Belgian experience I was going to need to visit the Smurf experience!

The Phils (Grandpa and Phillip) took a hard pass on the Smurf experience but the rest of us were game. It was a bizarre and deeply satisfying adventure that culminated in a virtual reality where you felt like you were riding a Swan into the Smurf village.  Weird and...wow!!

We finished our day with a lovely classic Belgian meal of moule frites (fries with mussels). It was delicious.