After the Stolen Camera -incident we were more than cautious in Brussels. We also had bias about the city itself, the city being "The European capital of thieves". This was actually forgotten by another fact which Leena remembered very well from her previous visit in Brussels; city's streets were covered with dog poo and you had to be very careful were you stepped on your foot. First Leena was slighlty disappointed as the poos seemed to be absent. How much had changed in nine years! Eventually this was only the first impression as we found out when we were strolling along the city streets and alleys. Poo here, poo there. Watch out the big one! :) But something had changed after all; there were new "dog poo circles" were you could take your poodle and do her/his business. Leena found this rather amusing until we found out there were no "Hauska koirankakkapussi" (biodegradable dog poo bags) nowhere in sight. Anyway, it was good to see some improvements in that area, perhaps initiated by The European Parliament.
OK OK, we did something else while we were in Brussels. And hey, Belgians love their beer and we wanted to give it a try. Eventually we visited 3 very different pubs/bars; first one was a must - A la Mort Subite. The name means 'instant death' but the beer wasn't that strong but rather good. Another great place we popped in was Delirium Cafe.
They had a phone book -like system for listing all their beers and until this date they served 2011 beers (one added to the list each year)! Being in Belgium, the capital of great beers, we decided we hadn't actually tried and tested enough local frosties. From our hostel's great map/guide leaflet we found an 'anarchist' bar near the hostel. This small place had been open on and off since 1968 luckily open while we were in Brussels. The leaflet guided us to try a beer called Duvel which we proved to be fairly strong, only modest 8.5 %. We decided that was the end of our Belgian beer testing challenge as we had to get up nice and early the following morning.
On the train once again! This time our route took us to absolutely picturesque City of Luxembourg. We spent there only a day but the city itself was so small that we could walk everywhere. We took a stroll around the city, wondered around the old fortress and under the bridge arches. It was such a beautiful, peaceful and well maintained place we could imagine all the people living there were happy. And happy they were; everywhere we went we were greeted by smile and happy greetings. We were a bit surprised to learn how good English everyone spoke (being French speaking nation). We guessed the reason was all the international bankers who had settled in the city. And saying that the place smelled like money - in a very good way indeed :) Fortunately we had a bit of time in our hands the following morning before take-off to Paris so we it was possible to sleep in and rest for a while. Now were on our way to Paris where we will spend our 1-year anniversary (not intentionally!).
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