more exploring - upper town

the next day we got up and after breakfast went to the train station to buy our tickets for the train the Amsterdam next week and then took a guided (by Phil and a Kindle book) walk through the upper town- our real first stop was the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM) which was wonderfully informative and had audio guides with demos of many of the collections' instruments.  We had a lunch there on the top floor of the former Old England department store- and then headed out into the city-

on to the walk-

a fabulous dinner rounded out the day and as evening fell the Grand Place was lit with rainbow colors for gay pride-

  

 amazing oyster starter for me and foie for Phil

incredible veal chop for me and pigeon for Phil-

palate cleanser-

the dessert menu-

raspberry and chocolate mousse for Phil and a raspberry mousse and sabayon sauce with dark chocolate mechanical shapes for me-

finally the mignardises-

nighttime at the Grand Place- lit for gay pride! really beautiful - and it brought out the crowds to see the light show---

tomorrow off to the train in the morning for our trip to Brugges on the day with the best weather forecast! so stay tuned!

we explore Brussels

So even though we were some what off schedule we started our exploration of Brussels right away - in the chocolate shops of the Grand Place. LOL- I know I know-

we also went into the Galleries Hubert to scope out the chocolate scene there as well- LOL

there are actually a number of other things to buy beside chocolate-



The other food things around here beside chocolate are waffles and frites (French fries!)

for dinner we headed to a place we loved the last time we were here- and it is still excellent!

we started with the shrimp croquettes

then had the fabulous soup de poisons - with the croutons and aoli-

Phil's lobster fricassee and my salmon with herbed butter-

we headed home to bed - already after midnight- so we felt like we had won the jet lag battle!