I decided that I could not let my dad leave Belgium without going to a brewery, so, I chose to take him to Cantillon Brewery. The reason why I chose this particular brewery was because this is the last traditional brewery in Brussels. A family-run business, founder Paul Cantillon started his brewery in 1900. To this day, his grandson-in-law and great grandchildren are now running the business. Cantillon brews the Gueze, Kriek, Rose de Gambrinus, Vigneronne, Saint-Lamvinus, Fou foune beers, and Lou Pepe beers.
After a detailed explanation of the history of the beer, we browsed the brewery on a self-guided tour. It was really neat to see that they were still using the traditional brewing machines of years past. Consisting of several levels, the tour took us through 8 different rooms involved in the brewing process. At the end of our tour, we stopped at the "bar" for our 2 included tastings. The first beer we drank was Gueuze. The beer was sour because there is no sugar added. I'm not a beer drinker, therefore not the best critic in judging beer, however, after the 2nd and 3rd sip, it was not bad. The 2nd beer my dad tried was Kriek (cherry beer), and I tried Rose de Gambrinus (rasberry beer). Both were pretty good and I would describe it as a cross between a beer and a wine... My only dissapointment was to learn that the brewing season at Cantillon ended on March 20. If you were to stop by during the brewing season, you'd be able to see a lot more action going on in the brewing process. Even still, it was a great stop.
We then headed for downtown Brussels to have lunch at Le Pain Quotidien. This restaurnt was featured on Rachel Ray's $40 a day and also one of the restaurants mentioned in several guide books. Le Pain Quotidien is a chain of restaurants/bakeries which originated in Belgium (now expanded to several European cities along w/the good ol' USA) with a very casual atmosphere. The food was delish! I had a cafe-au-lait (it was yummy, Lori)! and an eggplant/tomato/cheese sandwich. Dad had a hot cocoa with a smoked chicken/zucchini/tomato sandwich followed by Tiramisu. The sandwiches were served open-faced on a thin slice of fresh bread along side a small bed of greens. Great service (we had a really nice waiter) and again, good food... Bon-Appetit!
After lunch, we took a short stroll to Saint Catherine's Cathedral and took our pictures inside and out. Exiting the Cathedral, we couldn't help but notice the crowd of people at this stand (Noordzee, Mer Du Nord) at Place St. Catherine's. Of course we had to go check it out and discovered it was a seafood stand. People would stand and eat at the counter, most with a glass of wine, while the chefs prepared their meals or snacks right there in front of them. It looked really good! Too bad we were already full from lunch.
Our next stop was the Palais Royal. The palace is only open to the public from July thru September, however we found out the BELvue museum connected to the Palace was open. So, we went to check it out. This museum was interesting because it was devoted to the complete history of Belgium. Double bonus was that underneath the museum was the archaeological site of the old palace of Brussels. We could have used more time here, but this turned out to be a nice spur-of-the-moment stop.
We ended our sightseeing for the day to pick up the girls and to save some sightseeing for Ray!
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