BELGIUM'S CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Dec 25, 2016
3 min read

Normally, I am already back home in Slovakia long before Christmas. I am spending some quality time with my family and friends, baking gingerbreads or other tasty sweets and getting into christmas spirit. I just Love it!

This time, though, it was different, because I had to stay in Belgium until my very last day of school. That means the day before Christmas eve. I had some exams from french, "Coupe"-pattern making and some projects to finish, so leaving sooner would not be possible. Well, every cloud has a silver lining, thanks to this extension I could experience pre-christmas spirit in Belgium and visit Brussels and Bruges. It was different in it's own way but still magical.

IN LIÉGE

I was giving a hug to a shiny teddy bear, inside of a huge Christmas ball on a main square. It was so cute! ;P

This spiced shortcrust biscuits are called Speculoos. They are tipical for Belgium and are eaten before St. Nicholas' day. We actually got some in my University, the day before St. Nicholas'. It reamind me my home in Slovakia when I was a kid. So, It was definitelly a nice surprise they do it here.

IN BRUSSELS

Just few weeks before Christmas, I had scheduled another trip with my Culture and Heritage course. It was into Brussels. No doubts, this city is always on top of the list of the places you must see when you are here in Belgium. The lights are twinkling, sweet smell of waffles, chocolate or cinemanon is spreading all ower the market and holiday tunes are playing in the background. That sounds very idyllic. Does it? Well, it is true partly, it is trully a beautiful city with all that tipical architecture, but in this season it just gets crazy. Tourists and in general people are rushing to buy perfect presents for their relatives, others are just enjoying the food in the market and at the end, the city is that crowded you can't moove from a place to a place. I would say that people invented another sport which is called a "present hunt". Anyway, I won't judge it I enjoyed my time.

Our goal for this day, was primarily to see "Centre Bruxellois de la Bande Dessinée"- Comics Museum. Since Belgium is famouse by it's comics we could not miss it. However, this post is not about the comics but about Christmas therefore you can read about it soon in my next update. Just to say it was cool and I finally know, where the comics The Smurfs comes from. ;P

GRAND PLACE

At the end of the day we admired a light show, which was full of colours and light.

Though, it was withought music ( no idea why) it was still very pretty to watch.

On a Grand Place is a Slovak Christmas tree more preciselly from Horných Orešian.

I definitelly had to take picture with it! :)

Traditional Christmas red hot wine with orange and "Gaufre" - Waffles

IN BRUGES

Brugges is picturesque little town sometimes reffered to as The Venice of the North. And it is really true because of all these canals and beautifull little houses standing on a water. I think it is my favourite place so far. I liked the calm athmosphere and the architecture was different as I've seen before. It could be interesting to live in some of these little houses on water.

I have already visited this city, but it was 12 years ago. I was retourning back home from London with my primary shool trip. I can just dimly remember the main square and the fact it was puring rain.

When I visited the city this time, luckily, It was not raining (just cold) so my friend and me could enjoy the trip better. We wandered in the city, got lost and found ourself back again, visited a museum of belgian bobbin lace (soon in my next post), took a boat tour and just symply enjoyed the Pre-Christmas time.