When we were coming to Bruges, I started looking for waffle making classes, I thought I’d found one, and in the excitement booked and paid for it. It wasn’t till later I realised I’d booked one in Brussels not Bruges. The cities are 88km apart. Not a massive problem since trains run frequently and take an hour, but it would mean we lost a day really in Bruges.
I’d thought about cancelling it, but since rain was forecast in Bruges anyway, which would have made the cycle ride I wanted to do horrible, we thought we would keep it and just spend the afternoon in Brussels.
I should have pre-purchased the ticket from Bruges to Brussels as it worked out to be €60, almost as much as it cost us to get all the way here from Amsterdam.
We got of at Brussels Zuid (south) and let’s just say it’s not the nicest area in Brussels. Was kind of regretting the decision to leave Bruges at this point but eventually found the place holding the event. It looked great inside, but I had reservations at first as it had 16 people on the course, and it was a bit crowded around the table, but it worked out to be heaps of fun. Learnt all about the different types of waffles make in Belgium. Southern waffles are sweeter and more doughy, Brussels waffles are crisper and designed for coating with icing sugar. On the course we made the Brussels kind. Heaps of toppings available to add, one of the weirdest is Speculaas paste, which is basically ground up Dutch Speculaas biscuits in a past with the consistency of thick peanut butter. It’s delicious and I’m sure it’s deadly.
Later in the afternoon we found the Belgian comic strip centre /museum. Think Asterix and the Smurfs and you get the idea.
Sharon had “Mussels in Brussels” on her foodie goal list and we found a place for dinner where that one was achieved. On the way out we decided to get the train back to Bruges from Brussels Central (as it was closer to where we were) and we found the “nice” part of Brussels. It was warmer and dryer than it’s been and walking around this part of the town at night was just magical. Glad we found this as my opinion on Brussels had been pretty low at the start.
It's all about the coffee 