Prague got bumped off by mean ol’ Brussels. Mean ol’ Brussels with the 1pence flights. We’ll still go to Prague, as we have a free flat to stay in, but a couple of weeks ago we saw the delights of Brussels.

We had to. We didn’t have to go to Brussels, specifically, but we had to get out of dodge, or Reading, for those of you concerned about semantics. I had formally quit my job and had just barely been talked into un-quitting, and Myra was nearing the end of an incredibly busy few months of school.

So, we took up Ryanair’s offer of 1pense flights (not without its consequences), got a reasonable hotel, and left the UK to go and relax somewhere else. Belgium sounded like just the right place, too. A spot of sightseeing, some aimless wandering, a bit of good food in between the chocolate, waffles, and frites, and a little catch-up on sleep.

We made good time to the airport (Stanstead), the flight was no problem, and then hopped on a coach that took us pretty much where we needed to be. The Metro system there isn’t as clear as in Paris or the Underground, but with a little help from the locals, we made it to our station, a block away from our hotel.

It looked nice in the pictures. It did the job, but just wasn’t the four starts I was expecting. They had also dug up the nice park that filled the view from the front to make way for another very large office tower. Brussels seems to be in a little boom at the minute, judging by the 1:1 ratio of huge-cranes-putting-up-large-structures to square blocks.


So, after dumping off our luggage, we strolled out in the direction of old Brussels in search of dinner. We came across a very enticing Moroccan restaurant and had one of the most fabulous dinners we’ve had in a while. The food was good, the décor very cool, but the staff (and owner, in particular) made you want to be their friends. You had to like them.

We didn’t actually have a single plan for the trip, aside from Myra really wanting to see some Magritte paintings, and of course, Grand Place, but generally, we just wandered around at a leisurely pace. Grand Place really is stunning, and shouldn’t be missed.
The main gallery there was something around 70% closed and they didn’t bother telling us that when we bought the tickets. Other than a Dali painting, which blew my mind, and a Francis Bacon piece, which Myra was all over, it was more or less a complete bust.

Really, though, there’s not much to say. We just relaxed and enjoyed being somewhere else. The waffles I could eat all day long, their frites really are better than regular fries, and the chocolate is to die for – or from, if I can’t stop eating it. It was perfect, including the furious thunderstorm that flooded the streets, and just what we needed.

What we didn’t need as much, was the saga of getting back to Reading. To start with, the ticket agent who sold us the return bus ticket from the airport told us the wrong station to go to to board the coach back to the airport, which put us behind schedule. After getting to the correct station, we find the bus sitting there dormant, with nobody else around. A taxi driver tells us that there hasn’t been a bus running all day or the day before, and that if we were to take the train to the airport, we wouldn’t make our flight on time. Cab fare was 90euros. We chanced it with the train.

The woman who sold us the train ticket told us that there were problems with all Ryanair flights out of Charleroi, and wouldn’t give us any further info. The train itself was fine, but the bus connection from the town of Charleroi to the actual airport put us back even further. We certainly would have missed our flight, except that…

…it had been cancelled because the entire airport, which is exclusively Ryanair, it seems, went on strike. No flights. No options. We had to stay at this hopelessly crappy hotel in an industrial area in the middle of nowhere for the afternoon and overnight, eating it’s only available dinner: toaster-oven baguette pizzas, which were even worse than they sound, with a little gourmet chocolate to wash it down. We had planned on being home for dinner, so our brunch and lunch consisted of one last waffle each and a traditional serving of frites (with home-made mayo!). I wasn’t feeling awfully top-notch that night. As a consolation, we did get to watch the US Grand Prix (in French) from our bunk-bed. Oh, and the 1.5 hour drive back home from Stanstead took five hours, which isn’t completely unusual for the motorways here.


Ah, Brussels. We want to go back, being a great place to kick back and relax, and I think we will after we see a few more places. For more to see, check out our pictures through the link on the right.