Friday August 2

Porte de Hal, Horta Museum and Shopping

A lazy day is a good day.  We didn't do too much today.  We got up and walked down the street to the only remaining piece of the 14th century wall that surrounded Brussels - Porte de Hal.  We toured around inside the old castle.  While we were inside the weather took a decided downturn, and we could see that quite a squall had developed.  When we came out we thought we'd just run across the street to a restaurant for lunch, but it was closed.  We sheltered a bit in a bar having coffees, and then walked back home to dry off and get our jackets.

An 18th Century Stairwell in 14th Century Keep

View From a Window

Main Hall

We then headed back out and walked over to an Art Noveau museum called Horta House.  On the way we stopped at a nice restaurant for some lunch.  We had about the best croquettes we've had, and some dips and the traditional tapas tomatoes.  Then we went in and toured the museum.  No pictures, as they made us put our coats and phone in a locker.  They were very firm about no pictures.  I was suspecting we were a couple of unwise words from a strip search!

We walked back to shop close to our apartment.  We wanted to pick up a few french cd's of things we've heard here, but the FNAC store downstairs was lacking everything we looked for.  We'll have an opportunity to try again in Paris.  We're just lazing late in the afternoon as we noticed a couple of street bars right below that play music and have atmosphere-so we'll walk back out after dinner at about 8:00 to check things out. 

10.82 km