PHOTOS: Brussels Layover

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Back in November, I took a week-long vacation to Portugal.  I'll post those photos sometime this week hopefully.  On my way back to Israel, I had 8 hours between flights in Brussels, which gave me enough time to go into the city (I ended up with about 5.5 hours in the city itself). 

In 2008, I had a 12 minute layover at Brussels-Midi when I was traveling by train from Madrid to Cologne, but my Thalys from Paris was 14 minutes late.  Do the math, and you realize the ICE that I was supposed to transfer to was not going to be waiting across the platform when we got to Brussels.  So I wound up with 90 minutes on that visit, but since I had a suitcase in tow, no map of the city, and very little time after having my ticket endorsed for the next train, I just took a few photos of the trams and buses at the train station.  Five plus hours felt like an eternity in comparison, and I only had a backpack, since my luggage was checked through from Lisbon to Tel Aviv.

That being said, I didn't actually ride the trams or Metro on this more recent layover, though I did ride the NMBS train from the airport into the city and back again.  If you want to find the European version of Penn Station, you can find it at Brussels Central Station.  There are three island platforms serving 6 tracks there, and crowds wait in a small area at the top of staircases that lead down to the platforms waiting for the trains to be called.  Brussels-Central is a through station, so during the afternoon rush hour when I was there waiting for a train back to the airport (my flight back to TLV was at 6:45 PM), trains were being called every few minutes.  The station is so busy that although I only had about 12 minutes to wait for my train (they run 4 TPH to the airport and I had just missed one I think), my train wasn't even on the boards until about 5 minutes before the train came.  Also, while I realize English is not an official language of Belgium, I was surprised at the lack of English signage or announcements for the airport train.

This is the train that took me back from the city to the airport:


This train was at the airport while I was waiting for my train to the city center in the morning:



As I said, I didn't actually ride the trams this layover, but I did see them.  It appears the older ones that were still in the yellow and blue paint scheme in 2008 have all been repainted into the new silver and gold scheme the newer trams sport.  Anyway, here are some of the photos I took in my wanderings from museum to museum and other points of interest that I managed to hit during my 5 hours there:











Thanks for looking, I'll probably post some bus photos from Brussels for the busfans reading this tomorrow, and the Portugal photos from Lisbon and the surrounding area will come later in the week...

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Continuing from yesterday, here are a few bus photos I got during my Brussels layover two months ago.

[WMAveteran]

The Belgians are so torn between French and Flemish that I'm not surprised you didn't see any English at the station .

[WMATAGMOAGH]

That may be, but a "Brussels Airport" sign would have been enough, as well as a station announcement.  I had a flight to catch and didn't want to wind up in Brugge or Antwerp.  In Israel (and other places I've been), they make English announcements for airport stations to help travelers.  I would have liked to see the same here.

Say you want about the French, but I've found the Belgians to be more difficult in dealing with as a tourist.