Amy Goes To Brussels | Photo Diary Part 1

Hey Guys!

Sorry there wasn't a post up on Wednesday, I went on holiday down to Cornwall with my family for a break and realised when I got down there that there wasn't any wifi oops! So, I didn't have the chance to upload this post until today :)

Recently I flew to Brussels with the Media Society from uni for an Easter holiday, we spent four days and three nights in the city and each day we had different activities scheduled around the city. So with my photo diary I want to take you along with me so you can see what we got up to while I was in Belgium!

Day 1 

Our travels started very early on the Saturday morning at around 2:20am so I didn't end up sleeping on the Friday night and seeing as I was round my friends flat we all decided to just pack and stay up :) our plan was to just sleep on the plane. So, we waited till around 1:45am and then walked over to uni where a mini bus was collecting us all to drive us to Manchester Airport. Even though Newcastle has its own airport RyanAir would only fly from Manchester and it was more cost effective, so we had about a two and a half hour drive to the airport. But most of us just slept (or tried to) which helped the journey go a bit faster!

Our flight was at 7:50am so we chilled in the airport for a while, got breakfast and waited to board our flight. Compared to most flights this one was so short and we were in Brussels quite quickly! We landed at Brussels Charleroi airport, so we then had to catch a shuttle bus into the city which took around an hour and fifteen minutes (most of us slept the journey as we were so exhausted!) and once in Brussels we jumped on to the Metro and headed towards the station where our hostel was located near by. 

Once arriving at our hostel (Hello Hostel) we checked in and all got our keys to our room, so we could all drop our stuff off and then we had about 2 hours to freshen up and get ready to go out for half 3 to explore the Grand Place and get dinner around 6pm. 

When we left the hostel we thought we would be able to walk to the Grand Place and what mistake that was! It took so long and we ended up stopping off at a bar on the way to get a drink and relax before carrying on with our journey haha! 

Eventually, after getting lost a million times we found the Grand Place and were able to appreciate the pure beauty of the city and the surrounding buildings! We stayed in the Grand Place taking photos and looking around at all the chocolate places and after exploring on our own for a while we all met back up as a group and walked towards the restaurant where we had a table booked for all 18 of us :) the place where we ate was called Shiavelet and has apparently won many awards for the food its food!

For dinner I had a Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni, which would have been better if it wasn't drowned in so much cheese haha! But everyone enjoyed their food and we were then able to find another metro station after walking miles and miles and got back to the hostel. Some of the group went out drinking later on back in the city but the majority of us were exhausted after 12 hours of travelling, so we all had an early night and watched Netflix on my laptop in our room :) Those beds were the comfiest I have ever slept on! 

Day 2 

We left around 10:50am on Sunday after breakfast to head into the city and explore a bit more. We were suppose to go on a tour around the city but we ended up missing the time slot, so instead we found a waffle place and explored around some of the back streets of Brussels.

 We came across some cathedrals and churches and slowly walked towards the current palace and the former palace: Coudenberg. We had a guided tour arranged so, while we had some time to kill we took some group photos in the sun and around the palace :)

Once we had taken enough photos and Polaroids we went into the archaeological site and museum for Coudenberg for our tour around the site under the city. If you didn't know underneath the city of Brussels is the former Palace belonging to previous monarchs, after being destroyed in a fire the current palace was built on top leaving an archaeological site to be excavated underneath. It was really interested being under the cobbled streets of Brussels and explore what would have been there before everything was built on top! You could even here the tram and traffic above your head. I would recommend a visit if your interested in historical places like me :)

Once we got out of the museum we decided to get ice creams and head over to the park to sunbathe while we had some time to kill. The weather in Brussels was amazing for the whole trip and I really didn't pack the right type of clothes for the trip, I was roasting for the whole trip and wore way too many layers haha! Sunbathing in the park was nice and we were able to rest for a while before setting off to find a bar for a drink :)

The bar we found was Delirium, a cute little bar in the back streets of Brussels and it was the best! They had over 3000 different beers to try and at the bar there were big black boards with a list of different beers, their percentage and price depending on size. I tried to 'Delirium Red' which was a cherry flavoured beer and considering it was 8% it was so strong! After a few of them we were all feeling very merry and considering it was around 6pm we thought it would be best if we ate something, so we found a place literally a few places down who did some great deals on food! So I got a the steak and a glass of wine for 10 euros! 

Getting back to the hostel we all decided we were going to try out some of the bars and clubs in the city centre so we got changed, refreshed ourselves, brought some drinks from the local shop and has a few pre drinks before going back out! 

That night we all had so much fun! We headed to an Irish bar where there was an Irish guy performing and we were able to karaoke and get cheap drinks! The next day we had very sore throats! 

Day 3 and Day 4 will be in the next blog post in Part 2! Look out for it on Wednesday ♡ 

See you on Wednesday my lovelies!♡ 

Amy xx