After my quick adventure in London, I landed in Brussels, Belgium. That airport was a bit confusing - due to some terrorist attacks, my ride had to park and find me. A friend had sent his brother to pick me up, which was exceptionally nice since we had never met before. We played some phone tag and 30 mins later were on the road to his hometown, Leuven.
It was a very pretty drive. Belgium is very green and lush. We ended up grabbing some breakfast (tho by then, it was lunchtime), and ended up eating at a little cafe in the middle of town. I got a Vol-au-vent: chicken, mushroom, and meatballs in a pastry. Tasted sort of like chicken pot pie. Our art group (made of a lot of Belgians and Americans) had been talking and debating about french fries for like a year, so I finally got to try some Belgian fries. Fries and mayo, which is their normal condiment, is a bit odd to get used to. My new friend had never had ranch dressing, which was still blows my mind. (that's my normal thing for fries). The fries were pretty perfect though.
He then took me on a little mini tour of the city - a super walkable little college town. The architecture is really amazing. The above shot is City Hall, which is a gothic building covered in statues. It was built in the 1400s. The building was damaged in WWII but has since been repaired.
Next to that is a really ornate church, so we went in and got a tour. It housed a really interesting art gallery, with some well known Belgian painters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altarpiece_of_the_Holy_Sacrament
The town is about 100k people, about half being students at the Catholic University of Leuven. It's also home to Anheuser-Busch and they make Stella there, but I don't really drink beer so didn't check that out.
After the museum tour, we went to a cafe in a square that's known as the longest bar in europe. It's basically a bunch of cafes linked to each other. Super pretty though. Then I got dropped off at my hotel, the Ibis. My friends TQ and Necro met up with me for drinks over at De Rector, and we talked TQ into coming out to Revision the following morning. After that I stayed up all night to edit Wondercon photos so I wouldn't have to work the rest of the trip.
Read Part 1 here: https://steemit.com/travel/@pingucat/road-to-revision-trip-diary-part-1
Beautiful City. But the Food takes the Cake ! :P
Followed !
haha thanks! I'll try to post about food adventures more often :)