My Least Favorite Travel Destination
A view of the Atomium, built for the 1958 World’s Fair
Okay, friends, gather ‘round the campfire. Today, I want to tell you about the place we went to that I liked the LEAST. I don’t know if it’s because it was our first trip ever and we didn’t know what we were doing, if our kids were too young for this specific destination (which is a problem we ran into on another trip), or if it’s just genuinely a place that’s not for me. Okay, I’ll give you a few seconds to ruminate on what you think this destionation might be. My least favorite destination is (drrrrrrrr) Brussels.
Now, first of all, was this trip all bad? No, absolutely not. There were some really lovely bits. And if you love Brussels? I love that for you. Amazing. It just wasn’t the trip for me. We went for Hubs’ birthday, so we were there in mid January. The Littles were 2, so we had loads of baby gear. It was cold, but not fridgid, and we even had some snow on the ground for a bit of the weekend that made for some lovely pictures. Looking back, I can’t really pinpoint one thing that makes Brussels the least favorite of all our places, but it is.
We stayed at the Hilton Brussels Grand Place, which is in an excellent location, especially if you take the train to Brussels. It’s literally across the plaza from the train station. Not only was it easy to come and go, but because it was so centrally located in Brussels we were able to walk a lot of places. We didn’t always have to get on a bus or train. Which even more incentivizing when you’re hauling two babies and a double stroller everywhere. We had a room on the top floor with a king bed, and two cribs, provided by the hotel. The bar had a meh beer selection and was a little pricey (as hotel bars often are) and the concierge routinely gave us less than impressive recommendations. But the breakfast was delicious and the staff always fussed over our Littles, so I’m willing to worry less about the concierge and the bar. Another pro of the location is that there was a little market in the corner of the plaza, so it was easy to grab snacks, milk, water—basically whatever we needed for a full day of activities.
Here are our highlights//recommendations.
Brasserie Cantillon: this was our first stop in Brussels. It's a family owned Lambic brewery that's been open (and in the same family) since 1900. For as much beer as I drink, I was surprised to find out that I had no idea how unique the brewing process for a Lambic is. And while I have to say it wasn't as kid friendly as many other breweries we've gone to they were really accommodating to us (even when T2 had a major meltdown). It's still a working brewery, and it was pretty busy on a Saturday afternoon.
Pros: kid friendly, 2 beers included with tour, employees were friendly and all spoke English.
My cons: out of the way location, tour is self-guided, and the bar area has kind of a weird layout (that makes free ranging the kids hard), and there was no food for purchase (the root of the small human meltdown).A La Mort Subite: we stopped here for some local beers on Saturday night. It was BUMPING; people were shuffling in and out, it was totally packed, and everyone was drinking beers. The atmosphere was loud and convivial.
Pros: it felt like a local place; they had a great (extensive) beer menu; staff and patrons were very friendly; no one thought it was weird we had toddlers in a beer bar.
Cons: it was dinner time and they don't really have a great food selection. We were able to find something for the boys, which is really all that matters, but we would have stayed for more beers if they had a better food selection. The food part was really our fault, but we both (wrongly) assumed that most bars serve food. While we've found that to be true in Germany it definitely didn't carry over to Brussels. Again, we really liked this place, and if they had more food/space we would have stayed waaaaaay longer. Even though we had a minor dinner problem, I'm still giving this place 2 mama thumbs up. The dinner problem wasn't their fault, and they were incredibly accommodating to us//our boys. If you're in the market for a Belgian beer downtown I would definitely recommend this place.Atomium: the Atomium is a cool exhibit created for the World's Fair in 1958. It was on our list of things to do in Brussels because it popped up on several kid friendly lists, and also Hubs likes science. It was €12 for each of us (the boys were free), but I have to say I think it's best for families with slightly older kids. You can't take a stroller in and none of the information I read ahead of time had indicated that, so we had to wake our Littles up from a nap to go in. They really liked the top floor where you can see all around, but once we went down to go into the actual exhibit it wasn't very young kid friendly. Michael definitely enjoyed it, but I basically had to walk up and down all the stairs of the Atomium with T2. They advertise a kids' sphere, but it wasn't open when we there. I’m not sure if it was because of how cold it was or if it only opens for school groups. It was a challenging visit because I knew Hubs was really into it, but there wasn't really anything for the littles to do. They did really like the 2 escalator tubes, and I was surprised that T2 was cool on an escalator (T1 was in the Tula). Afterwards we hit another snack-mergency, but luckily they had a little cafe right across the way. The Atomium is also in a MASSIVE park, which wasn't really useful to us because it was like 20 degrees, but if you were visiting in the spring or summer it would be more helpful. Also, Mini Europe is in the same park. We couldn't visit because it was closed for the season, but it has high reviews on lots of family travel sites. I think Hubs would probably rate the Atomium higher, but it just isn't friendly to young families.
Train World: Let me just tell you--Train World made up for everything else in Brussels. I was pretty skeptical about taking 2 toddlers to a museum, but our boys are pretty into trains, so I figured we would at least check it out. Adults are €10 each; kids are free, but they do need a scannable ticket. The website suggests 90 minutes at the museum, and I scoffed at their suggestion. I'll admit it. I thought "I have 2 two year olds. There's NO WAY I'm spending 90 minutes in a museum!" Y'all. I. WAS. WRONG. We were there for at LEAST 90 minutes, and if we had eaten lunch beforehand the boys probably would have stayed longer. This museum is great. They had tons of historical train cars in the museum that had been restored and you could go inside them. The boys LOVED it! And when the small humans are happy, it’s easier for the adults to have a good time. There were tons of kids and families there. Honestly, the only con I have is that I would have appreciated something more stroller friendly for as family centric as the place was. Like a place to keep it while we walked through would have been great, because all it did was hold coats. The boys walked every inch of that museum--well, technically we carried them some, but no stroller time. Train World gets five stars, and if I could rate it higher I would. If your kids are even a little bit interested in trains or transportation history, do NOT sleep on this.
Le Express (restaurant right by Train World; I can’t find a website for them): this place really brought us down off our Train World high. The boys were hungry and really needed to eat, and this was the first place we saw so we popped in. The service was poor, and the food was mediocre. BUT it did the job and the boys were happy when we left, so that's really all that matters. I kind of feel like everyone here was in the same boat (emergency snacks//food after staying too long at Train World), but it met the need.
Delirium Cafe: We stopped here for a beer before dinner on Sunday night. They claim to have the most beers on tap of any bar in the entire world at 3,000. It's a massive bar with 4 different entrances, and it kind of seemed like different areas had a different vibe. We went into what felt like the main section of bar, and the tap list was extensive. We had to lift the stroller up a few steps, but not a big deal. The bar was bumpin' at 5:20p on Sunday and, again, no one thought it was weird that we had babies in the bar, which I always appreciate. We only had one beer, but under different circumstances would probably have stayed for more. There was enough open space that I think the boys could have had a bit of space for babying, but it was definitely busy.
La Taverne du Passage: this restaurant also popped up on several family friendly lists, so I was excited to try it out. We had originally tried lunch on Saturday but they were busy so we made reservations for dinner Sunday. Having two toddlers always puts us on the early end of dinner, and when we arrived there were only a few other people there, but as we dined the restaurant filled. Our dinner started out really well; we had croquettes and ordered beers. I was happy to see they had a kid's menu, and was feeling optimistic. We were able to order quickly, and our food came quickly as well. Once we received our food the service went down hill. The boys ended up super fussy, and it got to the point where we had been finished for 30 minutes and still didn't have a check, despite repeated attempts. We got the check by putting on our coats, but it was the wrong check. Ultimately, everything was settled. Had the service been better I would have given this place a better review. I just feel like the server got busy and totally blew us off. Pros: kids menu, relatively spacious, centrally located. Cons: we waited FOREVER for our check, couldn't get more water for the Littles.
I think the lesson we learned on this trip is that we need to do more research next time we travel. We just sort of randomly selected Brussels, but I think we would have enjoyed this trip more in spring or fall. This was our first trip out of Germany, so we definitely had a learning curve, but we enjoyed the trip.