As we did in 2015 to London, and 2016 to Austin, and as much as we love our girls, Laura and I decided that we desperately needed a quick trip sans kids.  We had multiple ideas, and multiple plans that fell through, but what ended up working was Brussels!

After determining that the only way to get to the flight we wanted to take from New York’s JFK was to fly to LaGuardia first, we dropped the girls off for a weekend with relatives, headed to the airport, and score two seats together, one row behind first class (the one with the nice leg room for a 6’1 guy), and were on our way.  The flight was uneventful, and I managed to get some decent shots of Manhattan on the way in.  The ride on the NYC Airporter had us realizing an Uber would have been about the same price and much faster, though once arriving at JFK, we quickly got through TS Pre-Check, and got to the gate right as boarding for Delta One began.  As I saw on Delta’s employee website travel tool that we’re already been assigned seats in Delta One, we headed up to the podium and managed to be some of the first people on the plane.  As always, we enjoyed our champagne and started pursuing the food and wine menu.

I really enjoyed the shrimp and sweet potato salad, and finished Laura’s for her, as she’s not a shrimp fan.  The soup and salad were both decent, though I’ve had better on Delta previously.  The chardonnay helped.  For dinner, I had and really enjoyed the Bourbon Braised Spiced Lamb (paired with the R&G Rioja), and Laura enjoyed the tasty and spicy Dry Rubbed Smoked Chicken Breast.  And of course, two pretzel rolls were consumed.  As the ice cream leaving New York is always delicious, she ordered the pumpkin and I ordered the salted caramel, with all the toppings, and we split them.  Both were delicious. And of course I couldn’t pass on my other favorite part, the cheese plate.  Within a few minutes, I laid the seat flat into bed mode and was out within a few minutes.  Four hours later when breakfast was served, we both opted for the egg dish, though we were both still fairly full from dinner.  We later regretted that decision, as we weren’t hungry for all the food we wanted to try until late in the day.

Upon arrival, customs was fairly quick, and finding the train station, purchasing tickets via the kiosk, and boarding the train were all quick and easy.  Finding our hotel for the night, the NH Collection Brussels Grand Sablon, (purchased using points from my Chase Sapphire Reserve), was fairly easy, and about a 10 minute walk from Brussels Central station.  Even though it was only mid-morning, the agent was able to check us into a room with two twin beds pushed together, which seems to be a thing in Europe.  We could have waited for a queen, but I was just ready for a shower.  The room was on the third floor, and had a nice view of a courtyard behind the hotel. The windows opened fully, letting the cool air in.

After a quick shower, we were on our way out the door to start exploring.  The hotel was about a block away from Park Square du Petit Sablon, which sat adjacent to Palais d’Egmont, which according to Google Maps, is an “Imposing, iconic neoclassical complex housing government offices and international conferences.”  After reading plaques about each, we made our way up to Royal Square, a picturesque and very European square which once housed Brussels’ main market and original royal palace.  Around the corner was the Royal Palace of Brussels, where state functions are held, though the royal family resides elsewhere.  Luckily for us, it is only open to tour during a portion of the summer when the royal family is on vacation, and we were there the last day of tours!  After a quick wait in line for a security check, we were inside.  There are signs showing pictures are forbidden, though the young, contract security workers in each room didn’t seem to enforce this.   The building was massive, and each room was very ornate and well decorated.  We were happy to have the opportunity to see it.

From there we headed across the plaza into the Parc de Bruxelles, a large municipal park.  There happened to be a comic festival going on, so we pursued some of the tents as we passed through.  We saw a pretty interesting kids play area that was set up that we thought the girls would love, and saw a small band playing outside a café in the park.  Very nice park, and would be fun place to hang out.  From there we made our way west through the city to Grand Place, a huge city square completely encircled by elegant historic buildings dated back to the 14^th Century.  It just so happened that we stumbled upon a large festival taking place as part of Brussels Beer Weekend.  We decided that we may check it out, but a nap first would be ideal.  We stopped at a shop to get a coworker chocolate per his request, and headed to Delirium Café, an internationally known beer bar.  We split a bottle of Cantillon Gueuze, from the top producer of spontaneously fermented beers in the world, brewed in Brussels.  I then had a pour of Delirium Tremens, the flagship beer of Huyghe Brewery, who makes the Delirium series.  We were surprised and amused to see what seemed to be high school kids ordering beer at the bar next to us.  After a conversation with the bartender, we learned that while the drinking age for beer is 16 in Belgium, it’s really more of a suggestion.  Even the Wikipedia article on “Minimum legal ages in Belgium” shows all ages regarding alcohol as “rarely enforced.”  My, what a change from the United States.

We were pretty tired by this point, so we headed back to the hotel for a nap.  We were there a bit longer than we’d anticipated, but still had plenty of daylight left.  We were somewhat hungry at this point, so headed back toward Grand Palace to find a snack.  There were several places with waffles, though one stood out as there was a long line that went down the block.  Usually a pretty good indication.  We ordered one with strawberries and whipped cream, and one with chocolate fudge.  We found a couple seats at the crowded tables outside, and indulged.  Definitely the best waffles we’d ever had.

There were still a couple hours left of the beer festival, so we gave it a go. Twenty Euro gave us two tokens that served as deposits for the glasses used by each brewery for each pour, along with twenty bottle caps to use as tokens for pours.  The pours were mostly three bottle caps each, with some harder to find pours being four or five bottle caps.  We split each pour, and had about 10 total total.  Highlights were Boon Oude Geuze Mariage Parfait, which we toasted with at our wedding, a few sours not found in the US, and Westvleteren 12, which for years has been the highest rated and one of the hardest to find beers in the world.  We then walked a bit over to Moeder Lambic, one of the better known beer bars in the world.  We hadn’t had much to eat since breakfast, so we split a meat and cheese plate, while we sipped on some Gueuze Tilquin, Cantillon Kreik, and a couple Italian beers that were on as part as an Italian beer takeover.

It was getting dark toward that point, so we headed back to the hotel via Grand Palace, where the brewers were tearing down from the festival, and the evening light meshed perfectly with the lights on the surrounding buildings.  We went back to the hotel for a bit, before deciding that we would be amiss to not get some frites while in Belgium.  So we headed out to a small shop near Grand Place, where we got a large cone of frites with garlic aioli and watched some street performers break-dancing on a corner.

We were pretty zonked by this point, so headed back to the hotel, where we both slept well.  The next morning, we walked back to Brussels Centraal, hopped back and forth between platforms trying to catch the first of the many delayed trains to the airport, and finally got on one.  After a quick 15 minute ride back to the airport, we got checked in, through a huge mess at security, and after an hour long queue, finally got through passport control.  We waited at the gate for the Delta flight to JFK, and after not making it on, headed over to the United flight to Washington Dulles.  Alas, our spoiled selves got seats toward the back of a mostly full 777, though we have a set of three seats with an empty seat in the middle.  I slept off and on the whole way home, regardless of not having a lie-flat seat.  Upon arrival, we got through customs, Uber-ed to Washington National Airport, and got through security just in time to get on an early flight home that we’d expected on American.  This trip goes to show that we would often not get anywhere without flight benefits on all three major carries, as they all came through for us on this trip.

All in all, a very short and quick trip, but a nice break away as a couple.  Next time we go to Belgium, we’ll get outside of Brussels and explore some of the other cities and the countryside.