We got up fairly early (although not as early as on Friday), got to take a nice long, hot shower (which we can't do at our flat nowadays.... trying to work with our landlord to get that fixed) and went downstairs to have a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was a really nice buffet filled with waffles, tons of pastries and breads, cereals, yogurts, hot foods (the mushrooms were excellent), fruit and other stuff. After that, we checked out of the hotel and headed to pick up a Sightseeing bus.
We didn't have to wait too long, and rode the bus out to the Atomium. That is a huge replica of a metal molecule that was built for the 1958 Universal Exposition. It was much larger than we imagined, but still small when you compare it to something like the Eiffel Tower.
Greg with the Atomium in the background:
While we were there, we went to Mini Europe. It sounds really cheesy, and to some degree it is, but not as much as we expected. They have tons of models of famous landmarks from all over Europe. It was interesting and gave us a chance to map out things we'd like to see in other countries.
No, we didn't jet over to Paris, this is the miniature Eiffel Tower:
The most impressive model there was this one of Sacre Couer from Paris:
After we finished with Mini Europe, we hopped the sightseeing bus back into town until we made it back to Grand Place. Our first stop was to Leonidas, a chocolate shop that's supposed to be pretty good. We bought a few pieces of candy to bring back and went into a store called 250 Beers. I wish we could have spent more time there, but it was getting late and we wanted to grab some lunch. We ended up eating at 't Kelderke which was in the cellar of another restaurant. It was fairly small, but the food and service both were excellent. I had the Flemish beef and onion stew, which is braised in beer, and frites (french fries). Tami had cheese croquettes and a bowl of frites.
The interior of 't Kelderke. This is the entire restaurant.
After lunch, we went to a pub that Tami had read about while doing research on the web for our trip. It was called Le Cercueil bar, which translates into "The Morgue". It was a tiny theme bar decorated with coffins and lots of black. It was really dark when you walk in and they have black lights so everything white glows. The table we sat at was a coffin with a glass top. We both had a beer and it and it came in a ceramic skull mug. It was a pretty interesting place.
After we finished our beer, we walked over to the Sablon region and looked around the antique shops and market that was setup there. We didn't really find anything we couldn't live without, but Sablon has a lot of chocolate shops as well, so we went to Whittamers to get some tea and chocolate. Whittamers is a pretty popular chocolate shop in the area, and they have a restaurant. We both got tea and split a selection of chocolate cakes which was delicious. Now, fully stuffed with food, we walked to the nearest Metro station and rode it back to the train station to head back to London.
Our chocolate cakes:
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