Daily adventures of Mirusya | Location: no precise coordinates: July 2011

Probably, everyone who has ever gone to Europe has noticed that most natives are quite friendly, smile a lot and are very open-hearted. This is what I love in native Europeans.
Probably, everyone has some time seen pictures of beautiful colorful cities in Europe with amazing architecture and blue-blue skies.
That is why we decided to visit Europe this time again. No sea, no Turkey, no Batumi. No, thank you. Just walking. Walking around. Walking for hours. Just getting amazed. Just falling in love with Europe again and again.
We planned to visit Belgium, the Netherlands and Vienna (not Austria, but Vienna).
We had 14 days. Too much? Fuff!

Let's start with our way to Zvartnots Airport late at night. We were travelling by Austrian Arlines, thus our flight was 5.15. Sleepless night full of anticipations and happy expectation.
Have you ever seen on your way to the airport, just on the last turn to the left, on your right side the bistro called "Golf" that serves and delivers "Gharsi Khorovats" (BBQ of Ghars)? Just pay attention to it next time. You surely won't get hungry and will get a positive charge...

Hardly we managed to get on our flight to Brussels from Vienna because of a slight delay of flight from Yerevan. We were running in Vienna Airport. That looked quite strange there because tourists and natives are quite serious in this country. But we did it!

So we arrived in Brussels. You should see their airport some day. It's really amazing. Large and cute. Instead of total absence of outdoor advertising in this grand city, it was full of some really large ads.

So we took bus 12 (thanks, Google!) and arrived to city centre. On our way we saw some huge buildings which were the headquarters of such transnational corporations as CISCO, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, Ernst&Young, IBM, L'Oreal and many others. The first impression was that we got to the heart of world business. Then we got to the very heart of Europe. Schuman. The quarter where The European Commission, The European Council and other European Institutions are situated. About 14,000 people work here.

The building of European Commission.

All in all Rue de la Loi is the downtown of Brussels. It's very impressive when you walk among these buildings and only Audis, BMW X6s, luxury Mercedeses and Porsches pass by you. This is a city of really wealthy people. During my not very long stay the oldest and cheapest car I saw was a Peugeot of 2008. Not older.

Maybe it will sound trite but I would be happy to live in Brussels. It's so impressive, grand, rich, clean, serious, restrained and calm... An ideal place for me to live :). However, I hope that all the scandals concerning Breivik and his ideas (shared by 20% of Europeans) on "mono" Europe won't lead to collapse. And European Parliament will make smart decisions.

The building of European Parliament.

Here are some photos of Brussels.

Rue Lebeau

Manneken Pis

We used to think it was quite big, but it was so small! However, souvenirs with him bring millions of euros!!

Atomium

This fantastic monument was built for 1958 (!!) World's Fair. It is 102 meters high. There are stairs between the spheres. In each sphere there is an exhibition. The most popular theme is tolerance towards other nations, religions, races, sexual orientation. Then the lift takes you to the highest sphere from where you can enjoy a beautiful view over Brussels.

One of the displays in one of the spheres. It's a real washing machine.

Brussels Stock Exchange.

When you see it, you understand how rich the country is.

We also didn't fail to visit the Cocoa and Chocolate Museum near Grand Place.

Cocoa beans.

This artisan showed the process of making chocolate.

La Cure Gourmande chocolate shop.

Parc du Cinquantenaire.

Notre Dame de Bruxelles.

The imitation of Paris Sacre Coeur in Brussels.

While all the Christian churches look to the East, this basilica is turned to West because the King used to walk to this basilica from his palace. And it was shorter to get to this basilica for him.

When in Belgium don't forget to take a trip to Bruges and Ghent. It is worth visiting them. Ghent is the capital of East Flanders. It is a large port and industrial city. Until 1960s it was one of the centers of steel industry. Ghent is also a student town with a total population of 220.000 of which 70.000 are students. There is a 12 century castle in its centre and near it on the day we visited the town and the day before Rock festival was taking place. And in the morning this town was full of empty beer bottles. Can you imagine the smell? It was a crazy town. I liked it so much. Maybe, become a student in Ghent in 2 years?

In this town everyone is in real danger to become a victim of trams running just on the sidewalk as the streets are totally flat.

Town of Bruges. Small Venice as they call it. A fairy tale. Cosy town. Capital of West Flanders. Population is about 120.000 people. I can't exactly say what the locals do except serving tourists and working in shops. But they live like in a fairy tale. In colorful houses, over the water, in a very safe town.