I’m finally back with part two of my Eurotrip recaps! I took a long break from writing these, but I was determined to get at least one more done before the end of the year . . . and here I am on December 31. Better late than never!
I’ll jump right in. After spending a few wonderful days in England with Grace’s best friends from childhood, we took an early morning Eurostar train ride to Brussels.
For those who don’t know, Grace grew up in Waterloo, Belgium, which is about twenty or thirty minutes outside of Brussels. Her family doesn’t live there anymore, but we’ve had opportunities to visit together over the years and it’s always so special for Grace to visit home!
We only had a couple of days in Belgium this trip, so we decided to spend one day hanging out in Waterloo, and one day going into Brussels by train to explore. Once we arrived on the Eurostar our first day, we took a local train to Waterloo and stopped off at the adorable Hotel Côté Vert. We have stayed there in the past and absolutely love it. It’s super charming and they have the best breakfast included with the rooms!
Let me tell you a little bit about Grace’s hometown. Its claim to fame is the Battle of Waterloo and, of course, the ABBA song. That said, it is TINY. Which we both love. You can walk anywhere you need to go, so we set out on foot to enjoy some of our favorite spots. #1 on Grace’s wish list was going back to her old school (where she went from third through twelfth grade), St. John’s International.
This is Grace outside the school.
I didn’t take any pictures inside, but it was so fun getting a tour around the new changes to the school, catching up with some of Grace’s old teachers, and hearing about what it’s like to go to school there. I know it probably sounds weird to enjoy going to visit a school where I didn’t attend, but St. John’s is pretty magical. It makes me wish our future children could go there, but I don’t see us moving to Belgium as of right now. I didn’t love my own high school, so I like to imagine I went to St. John’s with Grace and all her amazing friends, haha :) Fun fact, Grace was the student body president while she was there.
After St. John’s, we walked down to The Snug, which was the bar Grace and her friends would hang out at after school. The drinking age in Belgium is 16, so it was totally normal to go to a bar after classes ended for the day in high school. So strange to think about being from the US! The Snug is a tiny little pub and it’s so cute.
It was still kind of early for dinner after our beers at the snug, so we explored a bit more of the town, including stopping in the Carrefour just to walk around, which is an amazing Belgium supermarket I’ve been obsessed with whenever we visit Belgium.
We were so excited for dinner at our favorite place in Waterloo: Pizza Hut. Yes, I’m serious. Pizza Huts in Belgium (at least the one in Waterloo) are completely different from in the US—they have nice menus and signature cocktails and the most incredible pizza. We go there every time we are in Belgium, and it was Grace’s favorite place to go as a special treat growing up!
After dinner we decided to make one more stop at L’Amusoir, which is a really cute bar and restaurant right across the street from our hotel. It was apparently around when Grace was in high school, but they have fixed it up a lot since then.
The next day we got up to head into Brussels! I love Brussels because of (a) how delicious the food is; (b) how laid back and easy to navigate it is; and (c) how local it feels. Of all the European capital cities I’ve been to, Brussels is by far the least touristy. But I was excited to be a tourist for the day!
On the way to the train station, we decided to walk the long way and pass by Grace’s old street and her childhood home. I made her take a photo in front of it for memories.
It’s so fun for me to think of Grace growing up in this adorable Belgian neighborhood.
Onto Brussels.
As you might expect, pretty much all of our Brussels activities revolved around eating and drinking. We got waffles:
Ate moules frites (baked mussels + fries . . . one of my FAV meals) at Chez Leon:
And of course went by Delirium to try some different beers! I am not a beer person . . . other than in Belgium and local Oktoberfest events I don’t think I’ve ever once ordered a beer at a bar or restaurant. But with the world record for most types of beer (by a landslide), even I was so excited to go back to Delirium after my first visit a couple of years ago. There’s something for everyone, and it was one of Grace’s favorite places growing up.
Over 2,000 kinds of beer, including crazy stuff I had never heard of
It ended up raining a lot while we were in Brussels, so we decided to head back to Waterloo in the late afternoon and took at nap at our hotel. We were exhausted but eventually psyched ourselves up to get dressed and go get pita for dinner at Pitta El Grecco, which was a staple for Grace in high school.
Soooo good. Yes, we both love pineapple on savory foods—I know this is controversial for some people :)
We were so sad to leave Belgium the next day! But we were also very excited to move on to leg three of our adventure: FRANCE for the wedding of our dear friends! We hopped on a train to the airport to catch our connecting flight to London, and then on to Marseille.
But first, one last waffle in the airport!
Happy New Year, and thanks for reading HDWD this year! I promise not to let so much time go by before I finally recap the last leg of our trip.