Brussels

Couple weeks ago I had a super short trip to Brussels with friends.

Despite our pretty low expectations when it comes to this city (I thought, OK, the home of European parliament, we will see the building, the Atomium and that's pretty much it) and horrible weather forecast, Brussels turned out to be a wonderful city, the weather was great (no sun, but no rain either) and we had the best time. 

Which I like the most about Brussels is that it is easily explored by foot (also we were staying at Brussels Marriott hotel, which is situated in the center of the city) food and beer are excellent (for the beer I have to trust my friends, because I am a wine only kind of drinker; the wine was great too), people are very friendly, men full of flattering.

There is plenty to do in this city, from history to chocolate:

- Grand-Place (a beautiful square full of tourists and locals, with stunning guild houses, the hotel de ville and the city museum; at night this place becomes magical and one of my favorite moment was having wine in one of the bar outside, despite the cold).

- A lot of charming little chocolate shops with great selection of homemade chocolate to buy and, whenever you enter one there is a free chocolate tasting.

- Chocolate village, in which we saw a documentary about chocolate making process and we also have been shown the praline making demonstration, which also included free tasting, off course. :)

- Atomium (symbol of Brussels, great to see, but for us it was a little disappointing, because, when we finally did manage to enter, after long lines, pretty expensive tickets and the supposed great view from the top we were expecting to see, we couldn't see anything because of the fog. We saw a little bit of Mini Europe which seemed interesting, but it was also unavailable in winter).

- Maneken Pis (symbol not to miss, but 10 minutes are OK. Crowded and loud, few selfies and ready to go).

- Old wild west  (We became regular guests at this wild-west-themed bar in the heart of Brussels, with great food and booze and the most friendly staff. With every ordered beer mug, comes a plate of fried cheese with pepper, which is one of the most delicious thing i have ever tasted. Brisket,  ribs, nachos, burgers, free peanuts were also on our menu, all very tasty. These combine with sounds of Johnny Cash and soundtrack from "The Godfather" makes the atmosphere in this restaurant perfect).

- Falstaff (Somehow I manage to find salsa bar in Brussels the very first night, an hour or two after the landing. Actually, we picked a random bar, ordered wine and french fries when some great African-american band started to play Latino music and the guests of the restaurant immediately started to dance salsa. It was incredible! Off course, the greatest dancers were beautiful African-Americans, men and women, who seemed to have so much fun, they didn't take smile off their faces. Such a perfect first Brussels experience for me, the salsa lover!).

Parc du Cinquantenaire, Autoworld museum, Art and history museum, all worth to visit.

This three days long trip seemed so much longer, because it was so content and we saw a lot for such a short period of time. It may have something to do with the fact that our friend, who is the owner of the tourist agency, was our guide and knew all the right places and directions, so there where no lost motions.