Day 3, Tuesday 09.16.08

We sleep in. We get a late start. The time difference is finally kicked, by noon we've walked to the Grand Place again for lunch. But first, a stop at Neuhaus for a supply of Belgian chocolates. Wow, such intricate and detailed little chocolates! We stopped here multiple times during our trip to pick up some souvenirs...and stuff for us too. Chocolate truffles, chocolate pralines (which in Belgium means chocolate with anything in it, not just pecans), chocolate bars, oh dear...



Chocolate fix complete, we grab lunch at Brussels's brewpub, Les Brasseurs de la Grand Place. Three beers on tap: blond, tripel, kriek. Kimberly sampled this kriek (many times) and found this kriek to be her favorite of the trip. She probably consumed an entire pint of it with all the sampling she did.

From here we hit up the Brewer's Museum, building #10 in the Grand Place guilds. Different professions have their "guild base" at Grand Place, and the brewers one is by far the most ornate and largest. Beer takes a prominent place in Belgian lifestyle. We took the self-guided tour in this building from 1698. 1698! The film was in French, but we muddled through. Remnants of the 17th century Hoegaarden brewery on display. 17th century! 1600's! And free beer samples afterward in a dark pub with old heavy wood everywhere. Plus you can't beat the dried hop vines all over the place for decoration!

On the opposite side of the Grand Place, we stopped into the Brussels City Museum for a tour. Now anyone who has been in a museum with the Gordons knows that we read e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g on the walls. We take forever. If the greeter says it should take two hours to go through a museum, count on 3 or 4 with the Gordons. Sadly, this museum was in just French and Dutch...so we couldn't read anything. We joked that this was a world record for us in museum visiting.

From here, Kimberly searched for warm socks in stores while Chris downed a couple at the Delirium Cafe, who owns the Guinness Book of World Records with over 2000 beers available at one time. Chris just had two.

We learned before we left on travel shows, in our travel books, and then in town in the city museum that one of the city's "mascots" is a statue of a naked boy urinating. This is no lie. It's entitled Manneken-Pis. You can't make this up. So we ventured out to find him, took a few photos, and giggled with the rest of the throng.

Back to the hotel for another nap, then it was a second walk over to Le Bier Circus for a late dinner. THIS time they'll be open! More kriek imbibed: Kriek Boon and Kriek Girardin. We're falling down the path of "stinky" beer for Kimberly. Her first krieks were sweet and candylike. Now we're getting into the more "traditional" krieks where sour and tart and stinky are involved. Kimberly's sips get smaller and smaller. The highlight though was chocolate mousse made with the Trappist beer Chimay. Creamy and delicious!