Meag: We heard about this little café set in the Galleries St. Hubert that all the locals love, Mokafé. After a sleep in, we headed over there and discovered why it’s a favourite with Brusselians. The atmosphere was sweet and the food was great, so we sat for a long while discussing our next backpacking trip.

One of the most important things we learned on our walking tour the other day was the names of the best chocolatiers in Brussels, and the stories behind them. Our favourite story was about Mary’s, started in 1919 when chocolate was a men’s business. We chatted with the chocolate man for a while and hmm-ed and haw-ed over all the choices for quite a while. This was an important decision!! We did not make it lightly. Some of the highlights included coffee, champagne and strawberries and salted caramel. Maggie was right about chocolate from Mary’s – it was absolutely divine.

S: We sat in Grand Place and ate our chocolates, sipped our coffees and took in the gilded buildings and Christmas decorations all around the square. We decided to check out Brüsel, a famous comic book shop. Belgium is the home of many well known comics, like Tintin and the Smurfs. Not that either of us overly love comic books, but it was really cool to see a shop that was filled floor to ceiling with every imaginable one.

We went back to the winter market because we really wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, and check out the city from a different vantage point. We thought we would get this slow relaxing one trip around ride, but instead the wheel went around pretty quickly four or five times before stopping. We spent a lot of time giggling, wondering when we would be allowed off and taking in the beautiful view of the market and the city.

Next we had planned to go on a beer tour, but we ran into a hitch once we got to the first bar, Scott’s.

M: Turns out the beer tour was cancelled! What! No! Worry not, dear reader, for the beer tour company took care of us with our money back and a beer on them at Scott’s. A little disappointed but still believing the night could be great, we asked Thomas with the tour company for suggestions on bars to visit and beers to drink. Thomas, who Savanna thought was named Hummus for the first few hours of night, pulled out a map and circled bars and spelled out beers for us (S: he had a really thick accent okay!). Turns out though we didn’t end up needing this map because he took us around himself! He explained to us why Belgian beers are so unique, and wisely warned us about the higher alcohol content.

The three of us left Scott’s and headed over to Delirium, the first bar Thomas circled on our now forgotten map. There were tons of beers to choose from here, and Thomas chose us three very different ones to start – cherry, Christmas and a lambic beer. The lambic beer is very strange, if you didn’t know it was beer you wouldn’t guess it. Our conversation started with beer but quickly turned to everything and anything under the sun.

S: We were meant to move on from Delirium but ended up having another round. Keep in mind earlier Hum… Thomas mentioned that the beer had a high alcohol content. Welllll we had sort of forgotten about this fact, and were starting in on our fourth beers each before we realized we were all pretty tipsy. With this in mind we decided to stay at Delirium and sip our beers a lot slower. We met a bunch of locals who joined in our hilarious debate-style conversation. Another round, many new friends, a whole lot of interesting conversation and a few hours later Meaghan and I decided to call it a night. We said our goodbyes and beelined for McDonalds, well aware that five rounds of Belgian beer is not the same as five rounds of Canadian beer.

It was awesome to have what was basically a private beer tour, not just because we learned a lot about Belgium and beer, but because we were able to ask the questions we wanted and steer the conversation. Another great part was that we were able to spread the five rounds out over the course of about seven hours, whereas the tour would have you drinking four rounds in two hours. That’s a little bit steep for us!

S&M