Our first day in Brussels

Nancy and I have traveled to Brussels where I am attending the annual meeting of the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue as Public Citizen’s representative.  We got into the city in the late afternoon of June 18, but spent a few hours walking around the city.  Our hotel is near the Royal Square, so we started there, then walked past the Museum of Musical Instruments, which is housed in this art deco building. Then we walked down through a formal garden into the Lower Town, where we hung around in the Grand Place, surrounded by gilded mansions and guild houses.   We strolled on to see the square in front of the church of Sainte Catherine, where a band was playing salsa as part of the Europe-wide festival of music.  But we were hungry, so we headed over the the fish market area near Sainte Catherine where we found a local restaurant, the Marie Joseph.

Shockingly, we had a dinner in Belgium with no beer!  Instead, we had a carafe of Sylvaner with our nicely prepared fish – I consoled myself with the fact that Sylvaner has become hard to find in the US (or, at least, in the DC area).  A good dinner, then we walked back up the hill to our hotel where we promptly fell fast asleep.