We awoke on the Saturday morning and had a leisurely continental breakfast at the hotel, prior to taking an equally leisurely journey into the centre of Brussels by SNCB’s finest. Unfortunately the majority of their suburban rolling stock of the time wouldnt even be fit for a UK heritage railway, they were of a particular vintage.
We took the train primarily because even when I had the robust BMW 5 Series when I lived there, one thing I was absolutely not going to do was going to be to drive into the centre of Brussels.
Virtually every car that I ever saw in Brussels had a dent in the left hand door, where they had obviously assumed priority on pulling out from a side-street. It was absolutely endemic and there was no way on this earth that I was ever going to risk the XJS by taking her into the centre of town.
No, the purpose of the day was to go in and have a leisurely afternoon lunch at a favourite establishment in town and take a look around the central shopping area and around the Grand Place which is always good for some pictures.
We caught the train into Brussels MIDI in the end which is pretty much the closest station to the Grand Place and sought out an Irish bar which used to be a favourite place, virtually opposite the Bourse. Always a good place to stop for a swift half and this was the place in which I first discovered Magners back in 2005, when it was launched on the continent before it was first available in London. Reilly’s, I think it was called. Its still there, but the road that used to run in front of both the Bourse and Reilly’s has now been pedestrianised. Funnily enough, if you look at some old Google Maps pictures of the Bourse, they date back to 2010 and the road, Boulevard Anspach, was definitely as I remember it, fully open to traffic.
A brief sojourn down an adjacent side street, leads to the Rue De Midi which then leads on to the Market Square of the Grand Place, the central Market Square. An impressive sight, with old architecture and the central touristy hub of the main city itself. Open air gigs, carnivals, Christmas markets, you name it, it all happens here at some point or another.
I do remember a chocolaterie that used to be around here that used to belong to the French brand, Valrohna, still to this day I maintain, the greatest chocolate brand in the world and the finest couvature I have ever tasted. The late Mrs F and I used to visit here quite often to buy supplies, either just for the pleasure of enjoying them or for preparing with desserts. Alas my efforts to find it that day were unsuccessful; in the 18 months or so that I had been away, the shop had closed and had been taken over by something else completely unrelated. There were no other shortage of Belgian confectioners and artisan chocolatiers still around though, so there was plenty for Alison to take a look at.
Just off to the north of the Grand Place is the Galerie Saint Hubert, an impressive shopping arcade, like Burlington Arcade on steroids, LOLZ. Not quite as big and as spectacular as Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuale, granted, but still pretty impressive. A good proportion of the shops that I would have remembered from then would be long gone, particularly some of the designer labels, the choclatiers, the artisan gourmand food providers and so on… but it had to be somewhere that I would introduce Alison to.
From there it was a relatively short walk further up towards the hotel that the Late Mrs F and I first stayed at when we went there on our first overseas City Break (the Metropole, now sadly closed) and to a restaurant just around from the corner from there, namely an establishment called Belga Queen on the Rue Fosse Aux Loups. Its a former bank that has been turned into a restaurant/brasserie and is quite a Brussels landmark and has been there for some time.
The Grand Hall is almost like a restaurant version of the Warner Brother’s set of Gringotts Bank at Leavesden studios – lots of marble columns, seals representing each of Belgium’s provinces at just above head height, wide and discrete dining areas and, at the time that I remember it, a set of steps down to what they now call The Vault which was their main downstairs dining area. Down here, off to one side, behind a set of black gauze curtains was one of their main signature party pieces, namely the toilets. All of these cubicles were unisex and they were glass and, to the outside view, were completely transparent, you could see right through all of them.
Until you go in and shut the door and turn the lock and then the cubicle’s glass frosts and you cant see in or out. It was quite a funny talking point back in the day and I dont know if they still have them or not. Given that the building had a complete refit last year, I would doubt that such a novelty feature would still be there somehow, although I could be wrong.
On this day though, because we were quite early in the day, the Main Hall wasnt open, that was only for Dinner; so at the front of the building was their seafood bar. We had, between us, a dozen oysters and a bottle of fizz. I dont remember what sort it was, it could just have easily have been a Cremant as it could have been a Bollinger.
Suffice it to say, I find it a most agreeable way of spending an afternoon, watching the world go by, enjoying the oysters with the accompanying condiments, be it shallot vinegar or just lemon juice or tabasco with a bottle of good fizz.
At about 3.30-4.00pm, we walked back to Brussels MIDI through the Saturday afternoon hoardes of locals and fellow tourists and caught the train back to Diegem. We had quite a while to wait for SNCB’s finest, if I remember rightly and we finally got back to the hotel at about 5 to 5.30. SNCB I’m afraid, make the likes of LNWR, Arriva and the other UK TOCs look like Pullman operators…
Again, a simple evening, just bar snacks and a couple of drinks and it was time to turn in for the night as it was going to be an important journey back to the UK the following day.
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