Last Day Solo

On my last day in Belgium, I walked over to the Cathédral des Saints Michel et Gudule. It's where royal weddings and funerals have taken place. Here's a photo of the exterior and some of the stained glass windows:



A few blocks away, I went to the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée, also known as the CBBD, or the Comic Strip museum. Belgium is known for not only loving comic strips, but the birthplace of Tintin and the Smurfs. There was an extensive overview about how comic strips are made, the history, and various memorabilia. There's a also an exhibit of Brussels in comic strips. It was fun to see various places I've visited sketched in as the setting of various stories. Here are some collages:





On my way to St. Catherine's place, I walked through the Place des Martyrs where apparently 445 Belgians died and were buried during the Belgian Revolution of 1830. The Memorial below:



St. Catherine's Place is known for their fish shops and restaurants. Belgium is also well known for the local seafood as it is on the North Sea. I went to Nordzee or La Mer de la Nord for my brunch. It came up often in my restaurant research and Athena had mentioned it. It's only open during the day and for take away only. I had oysters, shrimp croquettes, and a shrimp salad sandwich. All super fresh and cleanly prepared. A collage below:



After my lunch, I headed back to my hotel and picked up my luggage. I could take the tram to Brussels Zuid - Midi station, but that requires more walking and dragging of luggage. So I popped in to Central station and hopped on one of the many regional trains for the 3 minute ride. When I researched this, there were trains every 3 minutes. Athena described it as taking the Metro-North from Grand Central to 125th St, instead of taking the subway. Very true...

My Thalys high speed train took less than 1.5 hours to get to Paris Nord station shown below:



I took the RER regional train one stop to Châtelet - Les Halle's and walked 2 blocks to our AirBnB apartment which is rented out by the owner. We thought this was a better deal as we're staying 7 nights. Mikey, my longtime Georgetown friend was waiting for me. The apartment is super cute. Here's a profile of the apartment: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2213213?euid=55173476-4ffe-0550-4edc-51e01fa22562

We had dinner reservations at l'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, one of the best restaurants in the world. We had the price fixe of about 10 tastes and I had the lamb while Mikey ordered the quail, as shown by the 2 collages:





We walked to and from the restaurant and it was beautiful. Here's a photo of us in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral. We cannot wait for Rachel to arrive tomorrow!