Belgique, Magnifique!

I don't think anyone told the Belgians, but word on naive street is that it's a poor man's France with better chocolate.  I may have been one of these skeptics--because the major part of my decision making process consisted of the fact that 1. Rosa wanted to go there and 2. I could take Eurostar, thereby avoiding every inconvenience of crap budget air travel.  Plus, I would be whisked city centre to city centre via a bedrock-blasted tube under the Channel Tunnel. Done and done.

To Brussels we went. Well, to Brussels we met and started our journey--Rosa from Riga and me from London.  We stayed in a B&B that purported to have two twin beds.  It turned out to be palatial--the place was bigger than my flat with two double ensuite bedrooms, a kitchen and living room spread across two floors.  Good start.  

And from there, minus one accommodation debacle in Antwerp, it just got better and better.  Great food!  Murals in homage to Tin Tin! A museum floor dedicated to the costumes of a tiny pissing statue in a gothic central square!  And, of course, there was the chocolate, the waffles, the endless beer, the rapid, regular, efficient train travel, the architecture that reconnected me with my Europhilia.
                                         
We zipped around on the train from Brussels to Ghent to Bruges to Antwerp and back.  I think maybe the Belgians keep their little country quiet for good reason--they don't want the tourists.  And I can't say that I really blame them.  Fortunately, we ran into very few--possibly due to the time of year and cold weather.  The only place English became de-rigeur was in Bruges and we spent only a few hours there.

Pictures and more detailed musings are forthcoming.  But overall, after a week of drinking too much beer and ordering mussels in a restaurant for the first time, I would like to put my naive chocolate-swayed prejudices to rest.  Belgium--I salute you!