Brussels

I roamed around Brussels city on 18th Nov, Saturday.. Caught the early 7:00 am bus from near my apartment to Gare Centrale Station, reaching there at around 8:00 am.. Started my day pretty early as I was not very sure about the distances and about finding my way around, but it turned out to be really easy.. with most of the places very close by and at a walking distance from each other.

Grand Place - the oldest sqaure of Brussels is very near from the Gare Centrale Station. Finding the routes is really simple with the maps along the roads and at the bus stops.. And with an occasional helpful pedestrian to tell you the way if the sign boards on the road seem a little confusing, I reached the grand Grand Place just in time.. when the place was just about coming alive, with all the small hotels and shops opening up for the morning. It took some time for the grandeur of all the tall buildings and the old architecture around Grand Place to sink in..

Once I had enough of it, I ventured on the task of finding the elusive, small little Manneken Pis.. Not that it is difficult to find really, but I was expecting to see something much bigger than the really really small statue of the kid...that too in a small obscure lane. If it wasn't for the sign boards and for the souvenir shops you start seeing as you come near to the place, it is very easy to miss the child.. Overall - Manneken Pis is a sure disappointment, especially after you have heard so much about it. It seems though this kid is real famous in Brussels, has a lot of stories around it and has a big wardrobe of around 600 costumes by now.

From the old part of Brussels, I went to the other end - Heysel station by Metro to take a look at the Atomium - which is an iron molecule magnified 165 times. It has 9 big spheres, and you can go to 4 of them by elevators or stairs and to the topmost one by a real high speed lift. The best part of the Atomium, of course, apart from its size and the sheer engineering effort is the beautiful view of Brussels you get to see from the top. The ticket is a total of 9 Euro, which I suppose is worth it.

Just next to the Atomium is Mini Europe, a fitting place for such a place to be, what with Brussels being the capital of European Union. Perhaps Mini Europe will be a much better place to visit in Summer or Spring, but, on that day, with the cold and dry weather, it wasn't a place I considered worthy of a 12 Euro ticket. The point is - you appreciate the miniature monuments from all around Europe, if you have seen the real ones or the pictures of the real ones. Otherwise, it is more like seeing a model of some building, which exists in some part of Europe. But yes - for a tourist like me, who is probably going to visit Brussels once in a lifetime, it was a must-see place and I paid my mandatory visit to it.

By the time all this got over, it was around 3 pm and I had already started feeling a little tired and suddenly jetlagged. I decided to call it a day, and returned to my apartment by the same route, happy and content with my first day out.

Check out more photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/arati.rahalkar/Brussels18thNov2006