Old London Town and Brussels (with no sprouts)

Bloody hell, these things take too long, maybe I should find a day and just sit at the computer and post them all at once, even that is too hard currently as I just seem to be too busy, or lazy, I forget which. Any way, after our stop in Paris we headed across the channel to London for a couple nights to get back to the land of the English speaking. Originally we didn’t plan on going there, but decided that yes, we did have people to visit and things to buy. We stayed at the Astor Museum Inn which is right next door to the British Museum and pretty central, it’s a pretty clean place although the toilet on the third floor was a constant threat to get blocked (ewww), the other issue was that we were staying in a four bed dorm which was on the top floor, I can’t even remember how many flights of stairs it was to get to the top, steep ones too. Other than that though, good hostel, I would recommend it.

Big Ben

Westminster Palace, House of Parliament

The day we arrived we pretty much saw all the sights, Westminster Palace, Buckingham Palace (went again the next day for the changing of the guard, but they didn’t change!), Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, SOHO, Chinatown, Leicester Square, but we didn’t manage to get to Tower Bridge (damn it, we were so close at night too, should’ve kept walking). I didn’t take many pictures as it was a bit crowded and dull during the day, and the first night we walked along the river on a path with no real view, the second night was pissing down rain and we were indoors drinking and eating. We managed to do some shopping on Oxford St which was good, but nothing to write home about (just blog it, it’s fine) and paid a quick visit to the British Museum (enough to see the Rosetta Stone and the headless loot stolen from the Parthenon) before we left for Brussels.

Managed to eat at a couple of places thanks to some local know-how, Punjab in Covent Garden (I think) for some real curry, it was good, truly better than Australian Indian fare, Lobster and Burger (20£ for a lobster, that’s great value where I come from!), had some burger at Pit Cue Co with my old mates, more good food, so some pretty good stuff there, easier to find for us (probably because we speak English but not French and also because people took us there) compared to Paris.

And on to Brussels where we spent one night, our first night staying at an airbnb place with shared accommodation, we weren’t really planning on staying in Brussels but decided to break up the trip to Amsterdam a bit to reduce the day time travel. David, our host told us where to go and what we needed to see and eat, so we did that :D.

The Atomium

The Atomium (pictured), Grand Place, Mannekin Pis (a really small fountain) for the sights, and to eat real Belgian chocolates (thank you Leonidas!), Belgian walffles (for 1€ that is good value), and Belgian chips (drenched in tomato sauce and mayo, too much mayo for me), and mussels for 10€, this turned out not so great as we didn’t know which place to eat at because they all look the same, but any way. Yeah, Brussels, stop for the chocolate then leave, there really isn’t much to do there as far as I can see, drink beer I suppose, that would be good if you are a big drinker, cheap beers there. So that’s it for Brussels, hehe, next up, Amsterdam!

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