It was dark by the time we arrived in Brussels today. Which doesn’t mean much since this side of the world gets dark by 3:30pm! We were starving, so we immediately headed to the Christmas market.
It was opening weekend and it was absolute madness, and to be honest…a bit disappointing. Hardly any Christmas lights and we couldn’t find a brat to save our lives. No hot chocolate stands either! They did do a great job lighting up their buildings though…
We did find waffles tho! And waffles, did we eat! Salted caramel and dark chocolate on mine. Kevin’s was strawberry dark chocolate. No words. Just drool.
Next day, we knew we weren’t spending all day at the market, so we wandered around town looking for adventure.
Stumbled on the chocolate museum which was interesting enough, but really the best part was all the taste testing. We tried different % of chocolate which is ultimately the ratio of sugar to chocolate. That’s why the higher the %, the more bitter the flavour.
I’ve never been a huge dark chocolate fan, but since moving here, I have a whole different appreciation for dark chocolate and now find milk chocolate less satisfying.
The tour ended with us meeting a local chocolatier who told us how to make our own chocolates at home and how to tell if the shop is truly “handmade” or not. The end result is trying his chocolates which were delightful.
Back to the Christmas market for lunch – we tried a Peruvian dish and some onion soup. Plus more of that Swiss potato delightfulness.
As if that wasn’t enough, our prior tour inspired us to find a chocolate shop and boy did we pig out on those. So good.
We found the famous peeing statue and ended our evening with a lovely dinner at Parmesan and Riccota. I made last minute reservations and it’s lucky we did as it was absolutely packed in. Not sure how I managed reservations other than maybe my famous name…?
Next morning we trained to Amsterdam to fly back to reality. Sad we couldn’t go into the city for a warm stroopwafl, but I know we will be back sometime!
10 days and counting until we jet off again. Austria and Germany! More pretzels, more Christmas markets and looks like snow!
