Brussels, Belgium was a quick day trip for us from Paris, France. When we decided to go to Paris, France with our kids for the Women’s World Cup we wanted to visit at least one new to us place while we were in Europe.

Brussels is a quick hour and a half train trip from Paris, which seemed idea. A quick train ride for a whole day in Belgium.

also read: A Week in Paris, France with Kids

A Day in Brussels….

Brussels is a bustling city that, much like Paris, holds the old world architecture and charm. Brussels is the capitol of Belgium and the home of NATO.

Ride.

We rode the Thalys train from Gare du Nord in Paris to Gare du Midi in Brussels. From there taking the local train to the heart of Brussels was easy. I will say, finding the Thalys train (at least for us) wasn’t easy after arriving from the RER line at Gare du Nord. My main advice would be to leave extra time.

Eat.

Belgium waffles. Belgium chocolate. A lot of our goals for our day trip to Brussels involved food.

We ate waffles at the Waffle House. If you’re a big waffle person I would maybe spend some time researching the best option. This wasn’t the most authentic option, but it was good.

Chocolate. So much chocolate. We wandered the street of chocolate – that’s my name for it. You can sample things in many of the shops and buy fairly reasonably priced chocolate in most places.

We were delighted to find options for our son with the dairy allergy. There were many shops that had a bar of dark chocolate he could eat. Elisabeth Chocolatier directly across from the Manequin Pis also had several flavors of dark chocolate with things in them – nuts, rice crispies, etc that he could choose from.

TO DO with kids

Aside from eating all the things, we also enjoyed exploring Brussels.

After waffles and chocolate, because priorities, we started at the Grand Place or Grand Square. Grand is a good description for it. My kids went camera crazy. I might have as well.

We also walked past the Menneken Pis (aka statue of a boy peeing). I don’t have much to say about it except my son thought it was awesome. I’m not sure what that says about 8 year old boy humor or Belgian humor, but they are apparently well suited for each other.

Then we went to the Belgium Comic Strip Center. My kids love comics and graphic novels so when I saw this would be so nearby I knew it was a must for our family.

We prepped for our trip to the Belgium Comic Strip Center with a healthy daily dose of TinTin and the Smurfs. I was happy to find a huge stack of both at our local library and my kids loved them. My son loves TinTin the most, my daughter the Smurfs.

I was glad we got excited about Belgium Comics beforehand because it was like finding friends when we got to the museum. It was a fun museum. Full of comics and we learned about the process of making them.

There were also some fun interactive parts to the museum as well. I would highly recommend it for kids about 5 or 6 and up.

Then we hopped back on the train and headed back to Paris.

Also Read: Week in Paris with Kids

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