Brussels in August

After weeks of traveling around northern Europe, I finally returned to Brussels. I planned to return that weekend to not only swap out clothes and drop off stuff I'd acquired over the past days, but to catch the Flower Carpet in Brussels. The Flower Carpet occurs every two years and they carpet the "Grand Place" with begonia flowers. It lasts just for a weekend (because it's real flowers), and I had never seen it. Here's the link to the Flickr album with all the pictures from the weekend.

The trip from Berlin to Brussels (via Cologne) went smoothly. I was at the station early, got myself lunch and enjoyed the view. I was already excited to come back and I hadn't even left!

From the Dunkin Donuts in the train station. Nice view of the Reichstag building

On the platform, waiting for the train

The station opened in 2006. Lots of glass!

Train arriving!

The train ride was nice and smooth, which was a bit surprising given how fast we were going.

Train going 230+ km/h (over 140 mph)

I had no problem making my connection in Cologne to Brussels.

Train to Brussels!

In Brussels, I had to take care of a few things (mostly banking-related). The next day I went out to the city center to see the flower carpet. At the same time, there was the Brussels Summer Festival, so there was a concert series, street merchants, and food trucks. I took some pictures of the flower carpet before the sun went down and returned to take pictures at night. At night they had a short light show with music. I took some pictures with my cell phone camera (in addition to the ones I took that are on Flickr) with HDR.

Before the light show began

During the show, lots of colors

At the end, all lit up

It was really impressive, I'm glad I had the opportunity to see it. I've wanted to see it for years, but I was never in Brussels when it happened. The following day, I went to the famous Atomium, a landmark of Brussels built for the 1958 World's Fair.

There's some iron atoms above me

There was a special exhibit in the Atomium for the summer, with interesting lighting and music. The views at the top were splendid, you can see the whole city! I got a combination ticket to also see "Mini-Europe", a park with a bunch of miniature replicas of famous European landmarks.

Mini-Europe entrance

The park was interesting, and it certainly shows all the major sights from the different European countries. Though there were some quirks, such as figures that had fallen over and maintenance work that was ongoing during the park hours. I guess I'm just spoiled with my high expectations set by Disney.

I wasn't in Brussels for too long. The following day I returned to Berlin to continue my apartment hunt. I also knew I'd be coming back in a week, since I'd be bringing my stuff from Brussels to Berlin via airplane.

My next blog post will be about the flat search in Berlin and the other stuff I did during that week.