The one thing I have been really looking forward to is doing the Tintin tour while in Belgium. Our guide met us in our hotel at 10 and we headed out through the Bourse Palace, which was the  central stock exchange, but has been converted into a Beer Museum. We walked to the Grand Place which is the location for the Kings House – a huge dark gothic looking building built in the 16th century. This is across the courtyard from the town hall which is another gothic structure – but a lot brighter and built a century earlier in 1401.  

Brussels is famous for its wall murals and we stopped by a few including one that paid homage to Tintin. These are all brightly coloured take up multiple floors and quite a sight to behold. We made our way to the most famous landmark, the Mannekin Pis, the statue of a boy urinating in a fountain. We learnt that the statue gets different outfits commemorating different events and it is going to be dressed up in a medieval outfit tomorrow to commemorate the Brussels Medieval Festival that is on. We also saw its female counterpart the Jeanneke Pis, representing a girl urinating in a fountain.

We stopped by a couple of cathedrals before ending up at the Tintin museum with artefacts from the various comic books and prints and posters. Brussels is also where the Smurfs were created and there were murals and references to them around town as well.

After lunch we took a train out to the Train Museum which provided a detailed history of the railways in Europe. Belgium launched Europe’s first steam railway as early as 1835 connecting Brussels to Mechelen. By the late 1800s state and private investors had built one of the densest railway networks globally connecting Belgium to most of Europe and as far as Turkiye and Russia. This played a major part in developing the Belgian industry and making it the centre of Europe – something that has remained as it is now the seat of EU parliament and HQ of NATO. The museum was very interactive with a number of trains and engines that the kids could climb into and play with.

The highlight was definitely the train simulator where they could drive a train through the country.

We made our way back to the hotel and went to one of the restaurant districts that had been recommended by our tour guide earlier. I had the traditional mussels while the other tried the local meatballs and fondue.