🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge

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Trip start
December 8, 2023
🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
The beginning of a new journey in the EU
December 8, 2023 in Luxembourg ⋅ ☁️ 6 °C
First time on a Belgian train operated by SNCB.
Curiosities:
1) Under 26s pay less than 20 euros (return) to go from Luxembourg to Brussels. Super cheap considering that there are a total of almost 400 km and 6 hours of travel.
2) Unlike in Italy, for Intercity trains the SNCB doesn't block the reservations when the trains are full. So you may have to stand.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
After +/- 3.30H finally in Bruxelles
December 8, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
The "gare de Bruxelles-Midi" in French or "station Brussel-Zuid" in Flemish is themost important of the City.
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
(One of) the Houses of EU Citizens
December 8, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
Why Luxembourg if we are in Belgium? Because Luxembourg is the name of the square where the EU Parliament is located.

Even if Strasbourg is the city of the "real" EU Parliament, and calls itself the capital of Europe (see previous trip), the majority of the meetings of the Parliamentary Commissions are held Bruxelles, in this building.

Finally, the headquarter of the General Secretariat of the European Parliament is located in Luxembourg, near Kirchberg.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Time to taste the "Mitraillette"
December 8, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
Super fat and caloric dinner.
The "mitraillette" is a small baguette with meet and a lots of fries, which in reality are not "French" but Belgians.
You can also choose among different sausages.

All this accompanied by a Jupiler, the best-selling Belgian beer with 40% market share.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
3rd Christamas Market of 2023!
December 8, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
After Luxembourg and Strasbourg, third Christmas market of 2023.
The one on Place St. Catherine is very large and extremely crowded.

The usual beautiful stands selling gluhwein/vin vhaud/hot wine as well as the typical Ferris wheel.
The shed set up by Stella Artois is very beautiful and characteristic. Inside it is possible to drink some typical beers in a hot and dry place.
Very appreciated when outiside is cold and rainy.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Bruxelles's monuments by night
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C
Wandering through the streets near the Grand-Place. Beautiful golden buildings, considered a UNESCO heritage site since 1998.

After a stop at the statue of Everard t'Serclaes, a Brussels nobleman who made the recovery of the city from the Flemish possible. According to legend, if he rubs his arm, he will return to Brussels again and precisely this continuous rubbing polishes the area, preventing oxidation.

Finally the Manneken Pis, one of the most photographed monument of the city. According to one of the many legends, this child urinated on an incendiary bomb and saved the city from damage.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Destinations for the whole of Europe!
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C
The train board makes you realize that you are truly in the center of Europe.
From Brussels Midi it is possible to reach Paris, Amsterdam, Luxembourg ... and even London by passing under the English Channel in the EuroTunnel opened in 1994 and over 50km long.

We are here again to take the train to Brugge, one of the most beautiful Flemish cities.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Brugge: the Flemish area of Belgium!
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ 🌧 8 °C
French leaves room for Flemish in this area of the country, almost on the border with Holland.

Despite the rain the historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, leaves you speechless.
Beautiful narrow streets with almost no cars, lots of bikes and medieval buildings built with bricks and which have survived intact and preserved from wars and fires.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Brugge: 4th Christmas Market!
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ 🌧 8 °C
And even in Brugge the traditional Christmas market could not be missed.
Cute, but in my opinion smaller and less beautiful compared with the others I visited previouslz during all the month.

It's worth a quick visit, drinking a vin chaud (hot wine) and to find shelter from the incessant rain.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Let's discover the typical food!
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ 🌧 9 °C
Typical Belgian breakfast, lunch and snack!

Breakfast: chocolate wafels/gaufres with a very good cappuccino (very difficult to find in Norther Europe).

Lunch: porc ribs all you can eat with a particular sauce (I did not like it!) served into a potato.

Snack: typical hot chocolate and Speculoos, cinnamon biscuits usually served during the Christmas period and to accompany coffee, tea and other drinks.

Is there nothing good to eat in Northern Europe? Fake news!Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
The famous canals of Brugge
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ 🌬 10 °C
As in Strasbourg, Brugge also has some magnificent canals visited by thousand of tourists.
The channels are the demonstration of man's struggle to reach the North Sea, a process facilitated (creation of the Zwin Canal) or obstacolated (silting up) by the forces of nature over the centuries.

In the future, with rising seas, Brugge (just 2 metres above the sea level) may have to start struggling again.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Time to go back to Bruxelles!
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ 🌬 12 °C
Totally soaked from the rain that lasted all day, it's time to go back to Brussels!

Tot binnenkort Brugge (see you soon Brugge)!
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Home (and light) dinner
December 9, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
After beer, waffles, machine guns, ribs and hot chocolate, a light dinner with Friends.
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Breakfast: pain au chocolat!
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
For breakfast a pain au chocolat ("bread" with chocolate) in a local boulangerie (bakery).

Refueling for this last day in Belgium!
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Wandering around the City center!
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Galeries royales Saint-Hubert!
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
Built around 1850, the complex was inaugurated by Leopold I in the presence of his heir Leopold II, sadly remembered for the violations of Human Rights he endorsed in Congo.

They are made up of 3 different galleries dedicated to the King, Queen and Princes of Belgian Royal Family.
Today they contain many important and luxury shops.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Bourse de Bruxelles (Stock Exchange)
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
The first stock exchange in the world is believed to be that of Antwerp (also in Belgium), founded in 1460. The "Bourse de Bruxelles" was founded in 1800 on the orders of Napoleon and until 2015 was housed in this wonderful building.

The rooftop is beautifully decorated and completely white, like the rest of the buildingRead more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Grand place by day!
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
After the night visit, to admire the lights shining in the golden elements of the buildings, before leaving we returned to see the wonderful square during the day.

The Christmas tree stands out in the center of the square, while all around there are the buildings of the rich corporations of the time, the town hall and the Maison du Roi, which stands out with its eye-catching Gothic style.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Delirium & Jeanneke Pis
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
The delirium bar is famous for the quantity of different beers it offers and has a pink elephant as its symbol.
The road and the whole area is very popular with tourists and kids.

A few meters away there is the Jeanneke-Pis, the female version of the statue of the urinating child.
According to legend, it was created in response to the "child statute" as a gender-equality message.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
The European commission & neighborhood
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
Last stop at the European Commission building, the one that is most frequently shown on the news and on TV.

A short distance away, also in the European Quarter, there is the triumphal arch of the Parc du Cinquantenaire.
The arch was built in 1905 and most of the buildings arranged in a horseshoe were built by Leopold II to celebrate colonial Belgium on the occasion of the 1880 Expo.Read more
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Time to go back to Luxembourg!
December 10, 2023 in Belgium ⋅ 🌧 9 °C
The weekend is over and it's time to go home!
Ready for almost 4 hours on the train, in the company of the many Belgians who return to Luxembourg every Sunday to work.
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🇧🇪 Bruxelles & Brugge Leonardo Floridia
Back in Luxembourg!
December 10, 2023 in Luxembourg ⋅ 🌧 8 °C
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Trip end
December 10, 2023