Traveling To Belgium: Brussels

The country doesn't seem to be very known to a lot of the most western people, but Belgium is a incredible country to visit, and lot's of people are getting to know the country better and better for it's cultural and hystoric character. Specially the Chinese and Japanese seem to be very fond of the small country.

Architecture:

This is by far one of the most divers sides of this city. It ranges as wide as the city itself and stretches from post modern (in the european quarters) to medieval buildings (grand place or marketplace).The most well known places to visit are the grand place, the atomium, the castle of laken with it's massive greenhouses, and a famous landmark: the royal palaces.

Grand place: This medieval marketplace was build after the town hall itself in 1455. The historic buildings surrounding the market holded the guilds from the medieval city. Every 2 years there is a huge flowercarpet made over the entire lenght of the marketplace and attracks thousends of tourists.

The Atomium: The atomium is for the Belgians a symbol, like the eiffel tower in Paris, It was build for the world fair in 1958 and forms an iron crystal,with it's height of 113 meters it is a landmark in the skyline. next to the atomium is mini europe, a park that shows all the most important and well known buildings of europe, in scale.

Manneke Pis: Manneke pis( or the peeing man) is a small bronze statue not far from the market in Brussels, the statue lends it's name on the fact that it is peeing water, and simbolizes the co-inhabitation of the French and the Flemish citizens. (although i don't understand how) It is a world famous tourist attraction.

The basilic of the sacret heart:This is a roman catolic basilica and parish church, and inspired by the basilique de sacre coeur in paris. King Leopold the 2th, laid the 1st stone in 1905, at the celebration of the country's 75 birthday. The construction came to a halt during the 2 world war and caussed the building to be finished in 1969 and is now the sixed largest roman catholic church in the world.

The european Quarters: This is a large area in brussels that holds the buildings of the European Union. The Berlaymont building hosts the European commission, The Justus Lipsius building is the home of the Council and the Leopold place is the home of the European Parliament. The quarters keep expanding every year and makes the city more and more important into European mathers. Due to all this political activety, the city counts more journalists and politicians than Wachington D.C.

Other cultural places to visit are plenty to find in this city; the palace of justice, stock exchange, theaters, museums like the museum of fine arts,(which has paintings of great flemish painters like Breughel, Van dyck, Jordeans, etc;.) the army museum, or why not the comic museum, where you can find famous belgian comics like Lucky luke, Tintin, Gaston Lagaffe and Marsipulami.you may find about 80 museums troughout the city, the newest one, this triving city offers is the René Magritte museum and holds  the worlds largest collection of the Belgian painter.

The king Boudouin stadium hosts the national football (soccer) team and is also being used as a concert facility offering 50.000 seats, the largest sports complex in belgium. This arena is also used to host the world famous memorial Van Damme.

Also beautifull places to see, are the wetstraat(rue de loi) constitution street, which holds the Belgian parliament and other political offices, the Royal palace of brussels and Laken.

Gastronomy: Everybody knows Brussels for the waffles, chocolate and local beers like the kriek and gueze, and to many people regrets, the Brussels sprout. Brussels offers about 1800 restaurants and high quality brasseries(offer a wide area of beers and food) and bars. You can find plenty of bars, cafe's, bistro's, fast food places like mac donalds. Cafe's are the same as bars but offer small dishes, coffee houses are known as "Salons de thé" The place to be in Brussels and you really want to see some couleur locale you should go to the "Rue des bouchees" The butchers street, it is a very small street, filled with restaurants offering there finest foods and fishes, which delightfull sences come to you when walking trough and the terrasses invite you to a fine meal.

Traveling is easy, with the Brussels national airport, Ostend airport, Charleroi or Antwerp airport. Brussels Airlines travels almost to and from any country in the world. And the city has a wide network of trains and metro connection troughout the city.

There is offcourse plenty more to see, but it would be to much to name, you just need to see it yourself when passing trough Europe.