I stayed at the La Bourse Hotel. As the name suggests, it’s located next to The Bourse, which used to be Brussels’ “stock exchange”. It’s also rather centrally located, a few blocks away from the Grand-Place, the city’s main square. It’s a small hotel; there’s not much room in the city center for jumbo resort megahotels. But all you really need in a hotel is a clean and comfortable place to sleep, change clothes, wash up, and store your stuff. La Bourse did all that.

OK, the room was pretty small. I’ve been in dorm rooms that were bigger. Other than too few hangers in the closet (good thing I brought a few extra with me), I had nothing to complain about. Except the lack of a washcloth. Body towel, hand towel, of course. But nothing about a foot square that you can use to really scrub yourself. I wonder if it’s a European thing, since the last time I was in Europe my hotel also didn’t provide one. Fortunately, in my wanderings early on, I came across a “Bed, Bath, and Beyond” equivalent. Not only did they have towels, they also had washable insoles (I grabbed a pair, of course, after figuring out what size I needed). On the plus side, the towel was on sale, and it’s more like a mitt than a simple cloth. On the minus side, I don’t think it’s really colorfast – I could see it coloring the water when using it. Maybe that’s why it was on sale….

For some reason, the bathroom mirror had Bluetooth:

The hotel restaurant is a tandoori buffet (I had breakfast but not dinner there – not my style of cuisine). There are PLENTY of restaurants in the area – some of which aren’t even tourist traps. As one of my tour guides said, the key is to look for a place that DOESN’T have photos on their menu. Locals do NOT need to be shown what they’ll be getting. You can, however, find menus with text in Dutch, French, and English – the most commonly used languages in Belgium. The first two because of history, the last because its so widely used and serves as a safe default language everywhere.

Like many of the many older buildings, the hotel did NOT have air conditioning (at least I didn’t notice it). Northern Europe is not used to temperatures in the upper 80s; they never had to consider any sort of artificial cooling. And with all the old buildings, how the heck could you install it anyway? There’s simply no room for a centralized HVAC system in an 18^th century row of urban houses.

Fortunately, my room was on the fourth floor – I had skylights. Pop them open, and the hot air goes up and out.

Another thing to keep in mind is that for some reason, Belgium is short on fresh water. You will not find the sort of water fountains we have here in the US in any of their public buildings. And if you want water at a restaurant, you’re going to have to pay for it. Best thing to do is bring a water bottle with you. There are a few fountains around the city where you can refill it.

Pigeon approved!

I think the water shortage is even affecting their coffee. In almost every case, coffee is served in six ounce portions (or whatever that works out to be in liters). Everywhere you look, they’ve got espresso machines – not the large drip coffee makers. So you’re basically getting a large espresso. The coffee was always good, so there is that. There was only one place that had what I’d call a reasonably sized coffee – Bigg Cake, a local shop. Sure, I could have gone to a Starbucks or McDonalds, but I didn’t cross an ocean to go to a place I can get to from home in five minutes. Personally, I suspect that all the good water is being used to make beer – but even the breweries have to recycle and conserve water, so…..

Coming up next – tour time! The Grand-Place / Grote Markt, and some HISTORY!