I booked a room for Saturday night in Hotel Bloom, located in Rue Royale which is 15 minutes walking from "Grand Place". I really recommend this four star hotel. It was renovated some months ago. It is decorated in a trendy and minimalistic way. Alumnies from Bruxels Art Instituted and some renombrated belgium artists participated in rooms ambientation.
But that is not all, the lounge bar -restaurant is really cool, the free fitness center at the top of the building invites you to work out (you find free towels and free fruits in there). There is also free wireless access in all the hotel and if you do not have any laptop or wireless device to connect to internet there is a business center with some computers that you can use in case also for free.
I arrived to Brussels around 11:00 a.m, i did not have any city map ( Yeah..that's me!!! ), so when i entered the city i obviously found myself complete lost. I knew that my hotel was close to the "Grand Place" , so i followed with the car all the signs that i found in the streets that said " to city center " until i saw a book store and decided that if i want to spend my time efficiently and enjoy the city i should bought a map. Fortunatelly when i checked my situation i realized that i was not so far from the hotel :- )
I spent all the saturday walking around the city center ( with the map ). The most beautifull and also the most tourist part of Brussels is the " Grand Place", which basically is the main square of Luxembourg. The architecture of the buildings located here is amazing. This square dated from 12th Century but in 17th century was destroyed by French army. The only building that survied to this bombardement was the Hotel de Ville ( Council in French ) which ironic, it was the first objetive of the french attack ( Franceses!!!!!...).
Close to "Grand Place" you can find the Galleries St Hubert, which are composed by three galleries: gallerie du roi, gallerie de la reine and gallerie des princes. Actually you can find some books, music, clothes stores, coffee bars and famous chocolateries, like Port Royal, Godiva or Nahaus, the oldest ( but not the best ) chocolaterie of brussels, opened in 1857. I tried some "Pralines" from Port Royal( 6 pralines 6 Euros -> 1 Euro per praline) they were not bad but for that price, to be honest i expected more.
The streets that sorrounded the " Grand Place" are overcrowed of tourist restaurants, where people enjoyed of one of the famous belgium plate, Noveul ( Mejillones!! ) which tipically are cooked with Tomato sauce or with white wine and vegetables.
I walked around for more than 5 hours, so i decided to go to the hotel to rest a little bit, i took a short nap and went to the gym.
On Sunday i woke up early and went to the gym just for 45 minutes. I bought the Spanish newspaper and went to a coffee bar in Galleries St Hubert for breakfast ( Capuccino, Orange Juice and Croissant ). On my went back to Luxembourg i decided that i would not like to go directly thorugh the high way so for the first half of the way i drove through secondary roads. I stopped in Waterloo, where i saw one of the most visited belgium monument, a lion located in a top of a montain that remembers the place where it took the battle of Waterloo where Napoleon lost his empire and more that 300 000 from 7 different European countries fought.
The next stop was in Rocheford, famous because of its beer, black and pretty strong ( 10º), which is made by the monks who live in the little village.
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