Brussels and U2 - Day 1

Can I just say that out of all the cities we were planning on visiting for this trip, Brussels was the one I was least looking forward to.
In the beginning, I just thought of it as a place to see U2 on the last stop of the tour in Europe. But by the time we left, I realized it was going to be one of those places that I look back and consider a happy place.
I ended up loving it!

Honestly, I didn't know much about Brussels or Belgium prior to our trip besides that it is known for  chocolate and waffles.
But as I think I said way back in one of my earlier trip posts, Mike took care of the actual concert, travel and hotel plans while I looked into all of the restaurants and places we wanted to visit in each city. And the more I learned about Brussels, the more I realized there might be more to this city than I first thought.

I don't think I have shared this yet, but here is my Pinterest board I used for this particular trip - Seeing Europe with You.
This pin A Self-Guided Walking Tour of Brussels, was a huge help finding potential sites to see! As well as 7 Things to Add to Your Brussels Bucket List.
We did not go to the Delirium Beer Bar, the Atomium, or Mussels, but we did make it to Maison Dandoy, The Grand Place, Peck 47 and Comptoir de Mathilde from the list.

Anyway, on August 1st, 2017, we woke early at 7:30am and headed to the train station. We discovered Uber was going to take too long that morning, so we ended up just walking the 20 minutes it took to get to the station from our hotel. After a little confusion about where to go, we found our platform. We then had enough time to take turns grabbing a quick breakfast from a little shop nearby in the station.

Our train ride took about an hour, and we thankfully were able to get an Uber to our hotel The Dominican..

I loved our hotel in Brussels, and I would definitely stay there again! I think it was my favorite out of all the places we stayed on the trip. The lobby was beautiful and the room was very spacious. I think it was the nicest hotel and ironically the cheapest.
At this point, we were so tired from staying up too late our last night in Amsterdam and getting up so early, that we crashed and took a nap. When we woke up, we got ready and headed out to look eat and look around a little bit before the concert that night.

We grabbed a late lunch at a little cafe across from our hotel that I have forgotten the name of and didn't think to write it in my journal.

This was a street we walked several times over our two days there as it led us from our hotel to the place we had wanted to visit the most in Brussels.

The Grand Place  - This is the town square of Brussels with quite a history and photos just cannot do it justice!

Just the two of us (looking and feeling a little jet lagged) - The Grand Place, Brussels, Belgium - August 1, 2017
This beautiful town square is lined with more modern shops today, most of them chocolate! There was Neuhaus, Leonides, Godiva, Elisabeth, and Le Comptoir de Mathilde just to name a few. 

This was our favorite shop where we bought most of our chocolate.

Here are a few more photos of the Grand Place - The City Hall

The darker building on the left is the City Museum. We didn't actually go inside any of the buildings, but spent most of our time taking photos and people watching!

From the other side of the square.

We found the hotel where U2 was staying right by the Grand Place, but of course we had missed them!
So we found our train station and made it to King Boudain Stadium for the show. 

From the stadium, we could see the Atomium which is a pretty big tourist attraction there. It looks pretty cool, but we didn't make it back out that way to actually go inside.
The set up inside the stadium was different than at previous shows we had been to. The stage ran along the side of the stadium instead of at the end. And as the crowd filled up, we were pretty glad we had seats that night. We weren't up to standing for so long as we had in Amsterdam.

Our seats were in a top section but still pretty good. Second row and a great view of everything going on down there. Here is the opening act Noel Gallagher playing again.

 So many people!

U2 out on the small tree stage opening with Sunday Bloody Sunday, New Year's Day, Bad, and Pride.

And the intro to the Joshua Tree album - Where the Streets Have No Name

Love that big screen!

And loved the lighting during Beautiful Day!

It was a great night! Although getting to the train platform after the show was insane. It was crazy crowded and all of these people were trying to get through one little entrance. But thankfully everyone was in pretty good spirits after the show. At one point someone started mooing like we were cattle and we all had a good laugh at that. Eventually we made it back to our hotel and to bed.

Kind of bummed because for some reason I did not write down my steps or miles walked this day. But nothing to do about it now! 

Day 2 in Brussels coming up soon!