not raising the ceiling

Until popping out for a wander this evening the impression gained of Brussels was not overwhelmingly positive, largely because a significant proportion of the time spent in the city so far had been spent in the Gare du Midi, not particularly manky in itself but immediately surrounded by a great deal of mankiness and not entirely user-friendly signage, especially for people attempting to watch their pockets and lots of bags as well as find their way around the place in order to get to the metro to get to their hotel, hopefully spotting the location at which the shuttle bus to the airport leaves from on the way. Similarly inconveniently for people with lots of bags who are trying to watch all their various zips and the other various behaviours adopted when in London mode and seeing a pickpocket everywhere on the metro was the random oscillation between the platform being on the left or right of the train. Ghent train station (above) was much nicer and didn't smell nearly as much.

After an initial wander with the benefit of not being weighed down by lots of bags it did seem a lot nicer, especially when the interesting bits turned up a block or two away from the hotel after being hidden by generic modern city during the laden approach. There are some reasonably visually pleasing new bit, aided by the layout as it's quite difficult to make a angled building on a bisected corner look entirely shite. A small streetful of reasonable local/tourist mix restaurants has been spotted (to replace the few mentioned in the guide which looked horrible on closer inspection). Two of the target visitable things are right next to each other; I was going to try the Museum Jacques Brel but didn't have time this afternoon and Nicky doesn't seem keen on it. Likewise the Atomium might have to wait until a different visit seeing as it's inconveniently well out of the way. What is convenient are the large numbers of places selling take-away coffee nearby, most of which seemed to still be open well after seven this evening. We're only here for a couple of days but it's good to know these things are out there. The international and cosmopolitan nature of the city also extended to there being a single chocolate muffin left in one of the cupboards in the bakery section of a shop we visited.