Day 2- 1st Anniversary in Brussels

Day 2

Day 2

First and foremost, today is my first anniversary to my amazing husband! Happy Anniversary Phil! Not sure we will ever be able to top this one! This year has flown by! :-)

Today we decided to stick around Brussels and look at as much as we could. The weather was amazing. It was party sunny and around 80. We began our walk by going towards the Grand Square. This gave us the chance to look at a lot of the things that were closer by our hotel. Here are some of the things that we saw.

This is a picture of a church that we saw while walking.

Phil living on the edge!

Street View

Phil and Patrick with a view of the area we spent all day walking around.

Another shot

We stumbled across a garden that was actually called the garden of statues. It was like a little slice of heaven in the middle of the city. It actually had statues of different men and lots and lots of flowers. Here are some pictures:

Phil and I with the garden behind us.

Pretty shot of some of the flowers.

Lou Ann and I with a shot of the garden behind us.

After we finished looking at the Garden of Statues and a church that was close by, we moved along to the Grand Place. On our way I rubbed the famous statue that is supposed to bring true love. Fortunately, I already found mine. I think the only thing it brought me was a lot of germs. Oh well, rubbed a stone of fertility in Ireland...why not rub this thing too?

A picture of Phil and I with a shot of the city.

We finally arrived at the Grand Place which is actually the old town square. They converted one of the buildings to a museum which is actually called Musee de la Ville which features all the historical pieces of this old town. It was really cool. It even had all the costumes that the Manneken Pis (The peeing boy statue) has worn. Crazy right?

Phil and I in the Grand Place

Gary and his new friend!
Patrick taking it all in.
Marx wrote his communist manifesto on this corner.
The Bowen's outside the old town hall.

Crazy picture!

Brussels is known for there lace. This was one of the well known stores in the country.
The first indoor mall ever built in Europe.
Moreeeee Mussellllllllsssss
The famous Manneken Pis- We actually saw him in a costume!

After we walked around the Grand Place, we started to head towards the Royal Palace. Before we got there, we ate at the Beirut Express and had some delicious Lebanese food! YUM!
Jumping shot with city view.
We think this is called Mont Des Arts, but we aren't sure. It was another gorgeous garden on the way to the palace.

A view of the Grand Place in the way back with Mont Des Arts directly behind them.

The same picture except this time with Phil and I.

Heading up the stairs.
A little old with a little new.
Look, it's Laura in Europe with Cammo and J-Man.

Lou Ann and Patrick outside the Grand Palace.

We ended our day by heading out to the Grand Place again and ate dinner at a restaurant called Vincent. We had steaks and it was great. After that we walked back to the hotel. On the way home we caught the sunset. A crazy fact about Brussels in the summer...it does not get dark until 10:30ish at night. It makes you feel like it is so much earlier out. Check out the pictures below of our night!

Phil and I at the restaurant.

Restaurant Sign
Group shot...9:45 p.m.
Group shot again
Patrick and Phil finally getting a chance to rub the statue!
Sunset over Brussels

Trying to figure out the metro for tomorrow's bike trip to Holland.
Why in the world do they do this at night to mannequins?
Yes, Gary looked at the weather for 5 different cities for every day and wrote them down.