The day started with a metro ride to the centre of the city. The Grand Place is one of the great squares of the world, with medieval merchants' houses alongside a royal palace. Everything is ornate and in many cases coated in gold. TSH and Diva used their DK guidebook for a walking tour around the lower town, which is really the working town. The small shops come really close to the old royal palace - in medieval times royalty and peasantry lived in very close proximity. The walking tour started in the GP, and then took in the grand (the Opera House), the scruffy (lots of graffiti) and the gentrified (fish restaurants and a fabulous cheese shop). The return metro trip was so crowded that Diva got claustrophobic and had to get off and wait for an emptier train.
There are nominally internet facilities on the TV at the hotel but navigation is not clear and its not very usable. TSH improvised a scoop from the foil on the top of the jar of coffee. The hotel do not provide spoons - its all supposed to happen in a stupidly complex drinks machine. Hence the kettle from housekeeping and the coffee bought at the Carrefour across the road.
Dinner was taken at the hotel and was acceptable without being great. Diva has taken a holiday from her studies but sometimes there's no getting away from Leonard Cohen, as Marianne played in the restaurant (not his own version). It was preferable to the Buble on a loop we had the previous night in the Italian. Diva does not like Buble but TSH really hates the music.
No comments:
Post a Comment