"Chocolate, beer and a 20k run" a Brussels Travel Page by BlueLlama

I went to Brussels as part of a team from my company taking part in the Brussels 20k. We left Manchester Friday evening and came back Monday morning so ended up having a little time to enjoy the city. As it was a gloriously sunny weekend (except for the downpour I got caught in just before leaving fot the race!) it really was the perfect opportunity to visit the Belgian capital. In fact, we later found out that this year's race was the hottest ever.

Brussels isn't somewhere I'd had much of an ambition to visit, but it really is beautiful, with wide boulevards, lovely buildings in a variety of styles and brilliant (if quite dear) food. I ended up spending Saturday in the old centre before meeting up for drinks with our colleagues from other offices in the evening and then racing to the Atomium and back on Sunday morning. The afternoon was race time.

Belgium lived up to its reputation in the things that really matter too: beer and chocolates. It's probably a good thing I didn't spend much longer there as the chocolate drinks from the Godiva shop in particular are very, very moreish...

I did find the language situation a little unexpected. Brussels is the first place I've been to since studying Dutch and I was keen to practice. Well, I remember learning the phrase 'Brussel is een tweetalige stad' (bilingual city) in my first ever lesson. But, although all the signs and roads are written in French and Dutch, I sadly had no joy speaking Dutch. A Flemish colleague did warn me that Flemish would have been tricky to understand - I didn't get a chance to find out as everyone I spoke to was a French speaker. Oh well, I did get to practise the language of gesture when I kept getting lost.