Brussels

We had great expectations of Brussels, and we were not disappointed. Our day started on a high with morning coffee in the glorious Galeries St Hubert. This 213 m long, light filled, soaring retail arcade was Europe’s first shopping mall.

For a city that houses the centre of the EU in the European Commission with its thousands of Eurocrats, we were delighted to find that the most common desert is waffles.

Being the land of the Smurfs, Lucky Luke and Tintin it is no surprise that there exists The Belgian Comic Strip Centre. It is housed in the former Waucqez Warehouse, a glorious piece of art nouveau architecture by the master of this genre, Victor Horta.

As a theme for our wandering we spent a couple of hours trying to find as many of the 50 or so cartoon murals scattered throughout the city in sometimes surprising and fun locations.

On cousin Jen’s recommendation, I sought out The Museum of Musical Instruments. This is housed in the fantastic Art Nouveau iron and glass Old England building. The extensive collection of instruments is quite impressive, but I am afraid I spent more time looking at the structure of the building itself.

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