What is that NOISE!!! Oh no, it is my phones new alarm music. I’ve only heard it a few times, and I am starting to hate it. It didn’t help that I woke up midway through the night and was a wake for 1-2 hours, jet lag! I left the phone in the kitchen, so I must get out of bed and walk a bit to turn it off. Oops, I hit snooze and it’s ringing again and again, and again. Finally, off.
The plan is to meet Paul, the scheduled “Brussels Greeter” at 10:00 A.M. We have no food besides some of my cycling carb fuel, so I know I am looking forward to a meet up at Nona Italian Restaurant.
We are out of the lodging at 9, not knowing where this place is, and we need to rely on Google Maps and walking again to find it. We don’t want to miss out on this chance, we had to make a reservation 2 weeks ago for it. Out the door we go, left turn, and start to follow Google. The place is supposed to be very close, but we seem to be walking a long time already and no Nona to be seen. We stop in a open pharmacy for help. A worker speaks some English and points us in a different direction but is a bit unsure of where it is.
We walk a bit more and come to a major intersection with Canterbury Restaurant on the corner, a good landmark. I try and call Paul’s supplied phone number only to get VM, as expected. Some unknown # calling, I would ignore it too. I text him and lucky, get a reply. I tell him where we are and he says he will come to us, perfect. 5 minutes or so later, here he is. Tall, cheerful engaging guy. The plan is a walking tour, about 2 hours.
First stop is Café Belga, 4-5 blocks from our start. Casual, busy, café, coffee, breakfast, lunch, and afternoon place. We order and get some welcome tasty food and coffee. Yum, I needed that. A few blocks further and there is an outdoor market and tasty little crepes, Paul’s treat, so good! Desert after breaky is good, right?
Paul is an interesting guy, works for the European Council and they organize the “Greeter” program. Free for tourists to book. He is originally from the Netherlands. Well versed in all the crazy government organizational intricacies of Belgium and the town of Brussels and is willing to share all the craziness of the place. I love hearing this stuff. Makes me like Brussels even more.
Our tour continues easterly through town, back up some of those same hilly streets we negotiated last night. Today, no luggage, not so bad. The weather is a bit challenging. Cloudy, misty, cool but we are all dressed for it. Up a main, narrow road, buses, cars, bikes all sharing the road. Our learning curve continues to get steeper. We crest the main hill and come to a busy intersection and main road. I look around and see familiar buildings, cafes, subway elevators, I have been here before. 2017, Bushy and I stayed a few blocks from here and this intersection is where we came to search for dining choices and access to the underground rail system. Amazing, what is new is old or something like that. Another coffee stop at a favorite of Paul’s, all the workers seem to know Paul, then a stop at a chocolate shop, hitting all the highlights.
We continue to the Grand Place and Museum area and then the final rise to get to another rail station, Brussels Centraal. We told Paul our plans and had questions about how better to do things and he suggested using this station and not Midi as our main starting point for the upcoming to and from Brussels trips. Still a large facility but a lot more manageable. Tomorrow is our planned rail trip to Oudenaarde and Tour of Flanders, so we bought tickets and learned the vending machine process.
Eventually, it’s time to split up, Paul has been with us for an enjoyable 3.5 hours. Paul heads one direction and we decide to head back to the lodging. We are on overload, have walked thousands of steps and have a big day planned for tomorrow.
Tune in for day three and find out if we figure out the bus and rail process to get from our home base area of Flegey and then on to Oudenaarde and back.