We arrived in Brussels at about 830am after leaving northern England at 11am on the previous morning. A bus trip that was made a couple of hours longer after we missed our ferry crossing between Dover and Calais as some bloke was travelling with two massive suitcases filled with phone batteries. He was interrogated by border security and then the police for well over an hour which then caused us to miss our connection by literally a couple of minutes. Cheers buddy.
Anyway, we made it to Brussels, dropped our bags and headed straight out for coffee to try and get us through the day after two hours cumulative sleep.
We chewed through a couple of hours at the coffee shop, then headed to the Christmas Markets for a bit of an initial peek before making our way back to Moeder Lambic Fontainas for a few beers. And much to our extremely grateful surprise they had Jacobins on tap! And Abbaye St Bon Chien, that's brewed by a Swiss brewer, actually stood up to the Jacobins and almost crosses that line from beer into something else entirely.
We also partook in two of our other favourite Brussels pastimes while we were there.
Spotting more invasions.
And consuming more fritey goodness.
Aside from the Christmas Markets, that was it for Brussels.
Nuremberg
A German city we didn't check out the first time around was Nuremberg so we thought we'd drop in on our way to Prague to get a taste of a traditional Germanic Christmas market.
So naturally, we made sure to get our German pork fix whilst there.
Firstly at Hutt'n, a traditional German pub/restaurant that's just far enough out of the tourist zone.
By the way, that is actually one meal that we split onto two plates. We love you German portions.
And then at Schaufelewartschaft, which is way out of tourist zone and served us up possibly the most tender pork we've ever eaten. The meat literally fell off the bone.
We joined a few tables of businessmen ordering that to themselves and downing a few beers on your average Monday lunch meeting. How anyone can go back to work after finishing that is beyond me given that we shared it and both ended up in food comas.
Finally, dotted all around the city are little Brezen Kolb stands selling extremely tasty pretzels filled with an array of meats and cheeses. It was hard to go past the impossibly creamy camembert!
Stay tuned for Christmas Markets Part 1 - Brussels v Nuremberg
Pug Sightings (!) - 15
The Beer
Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge
Zinnebir X-mas
BFM Abbaye St Bon Chien
La Rullés Estivale
Cazeau Tournay Triple
Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux
De Dolle Oerbier
Huppendorfer Winter Weizen
Unknown Brewery Winterfestbier, Dunkles Bock
