Last Day of Week One-Bonjour Brussell's

What did we do on Sunday, our last day in Paris for week one?It seems so long ago now. We were pure tourists. We did the Big Bus tour, both the red line, which we caught near the Eiffel Tower, did a complete two hour cycle, before we switched tot he red line for a slightly different view of things.

Here are a few pictures form the tour of items not yet shown. After the red line, we had a wonderful Sunday  lunch at a café near the Garnier Opera House. I had a Croque Madame, salad, and of course more frites. Everyone enjoyed their meal, plus the very happy waiter, who was Johnny on the spot refilling our water carafe and taking a picture for us form both sides of the table. Being near the change for the  bus tour line, he seemed to b used to tourists.

Taking it all in.

Musee D'Orcy.

Help me out. I don't remember what this was but interesting. 

Another view of Trocadero from the bus.

Look close-Versacce, but we did not shop there!

The Opera Hosue.

We didn't do the full route because most of it was near Sacre Couer and near neighborhoods where we had been. We got off though to see the Moulin rouge. Later, we explored some more street shops, took a bit of a rest, then headed back to go to the top of Mount Parnasse. We were expecting to wait in lines, but literally, showed our Paris Passes and got on the elevator up the 54 floors. to the visitor center. There was another two flights of stairs to get to the top, enclosed in glass to get a full 360 view of Paris. Being so much earlier than we thought, we had a lot of waiting while DS set up his camera to do a sunset time lapse. It was pretty cool once he was done. There was a bar in the visitor center so we had a break with snacks and a drink and looked in the gift shop.

But of course, le Moulon Rouge, or Red Mill to us Yanks. 

We left about 9:30, taking our time back, stopping for wraps, crepes, and fries at a little hole in the wall walk up restaurant-delicious! We found most of the little restaurant kiosks very tasty throughout our trip. A last evening stroll by the river, and we called it a night. I did some laundry so we would have clean clothes, and cleaned up the apartment. We were packed and met our hosts friend who checked us out. One funny thing to share. The host forgot to leave us the key for the garbage room, so said while it was not great, we should leave our trash in the bin in front. DH got "caught" doing this one time and had a little finger shake at him and motion to where he should be putting it. after that, we disposed of garbage under the cover of night. It became a covert operation. The last little bit we had, we subtly each tossed a few things in the front public can.

We had a pretty uneventful trip by train to Brussels. This is where the crabbiness of travel set in though. I totally was goofed by the Google maps, and what I though was going to be about a 10 minute walk to our apartment, turned into 30 minute, around street maintenance, pulling suit case over bumpy cobble stone in excessive heat. Then. once we found our place, it was a narrow third floor walk up. We all zonked for about 30 minute once we got there, self checked in with a code by about 2:00. Once recovered we explored and got some well needed food and drinks. Here are some pictures of the square, DS and his beer flight, and Manneken Pis. DS, DD1, and I had an earlier night while the two young adults found the bar with the 12;00-12:00 happy hour, made some international friends, and got away from their parents for a bit.

I don't think there was beer he didn't like. DD2 and I had a cherry beer-mmm.

The famous but I don't know why, Maneken Pis.

The Square in Brussels.

Th picture caught our attention but the food was pretty darn good.

The side streets from the aquare.

On Tuesday, we rented a car and went to Ghent, had lunch there, saw the University and their canals, then went on to Brugges. Our main souvenir was parking ticket that has been a pain in the but to get figured out how to pay. But I won't dwell on that. The city was beautiful, but not what tI expected. I thought cute, and fairytale, not 10,000 tourists. Still, we had a lovely canal boat ride, and bought fresh fruit for munching. DD1 was not feeling well most of the day, and the stress of driving in a foreign country got the better of DH, and a fiasco returning the car, so once we were back to the apartment, everyone gave each other a little space.

A ride on the canal in Bruges..

Me, getting a bit of DD2 and DS.

A whale made from ocean collected plastics.

 We headed out again though and did some more looking at the city and bought some souvenirs. DS took pictures and set up a time lapse from our apartment window that overlooked a part of the square. We got some more delicious food from one of the little side street restaurants which we brought back to the square, which seemed to be just  big party. I did some laundry right away in the morning, we packed, and headed to the train station for our Bonn, Germany leg, filled up with lots of Belgian chocolate to bring back for friends, family, and ourselves. The waffles, fries, and beer stayed put though.