Belgium

We took a 4 hour bus ride from The Hague to Brussels, which was spent reading and Jade practised some French. We were a little confused about how to catch trams and purchase tickets (no ticket offices were open when we got in) so we had a free ride on a tram to where our accommodation was located. Our accommodation was B&B Reyers / August Inn - a family home with a young professional couple with a newborn baby and toddler. It was a large house, nicely decorated, and our room was the theme chocolate. Brussels is mainly French speaking - Dutch is spoken in the north of Belgium. Most signs are in French and Dutch and sometimes streets or tram stops have two completely different names. The next day our hosts provided a lovely, simple breakfast, and we took the tram into the city. The shops were just starting to open - the first thing we did was to buy a box of assorted Belgium chocolates (and consume them). We looked around the city, including the Grand Place, and spent some time on the internet pre booking our accommodation for Paris. In the afternoon we took a tram to the outside of Brussels to go the Royal Museum for Central Africa which has a section on colonisation and King Leopold. On the way, our tram abruptly stopped and then we saw a series of police cars pull over on the median strip. The tram driver got out to look at the tram that had stopped in front of us. Apparently there was a man who pulled out a gun on the tram in front but nobody was hurt.