My boyfriend and I wanted to go somewhere in early December 2019 to relax a little bit and to go to the Christmas markets 🎄. We started searching for the best Christmas markets in Europe, places that could be visited in just one weekend (we no longer had vacation days left from work) and where the flights were cheap. Brussels was the winner! The reason for choosing Brussels had to do with the flight schedules and because my boyfriend had already been there for work and so, I also wanted to know the city.
First of all, I can say that was a big surprise. I wasn’t expecting much but, in the end, I really liked the city. It fits perfectly in a weekend trip.
Flight and Hotel reservations
We went to Brussels from Porto with Ryanair. I bought the flights in October in Ryanair website and I guess it was a fair price. I spent about 60.00€ per person without the second bag (only a backpack 🎒 – I will create a post about tips on traveling with just a backpack).
As soon as I booked the flights, I started looking for a hotel to stay. I researched a lot in booking.com and then I reserved directly in the hotel website. We stayed in NH Brussels Louise and we payed 146,70€ for two nights without breakfast. Taking into account the quality of the hotel and its location, it was a good price.
The flight
On the afternoon of November 30, saturday, we went to Brussels to spend a long weekend. The flight duration was about two and a half hours and took us to Brussels-Charleroi airport (BSCA). We arrived there around 21.30h 🛬. The airport is really small and had several constructions going on.
There is another airport in Brussels called Zaventem (closer to the city center) but flight prices were more expensive. The return flight was from this airport.
Airport to the city center
Besides the flight and the hotel, the only things that I bought online were the bus transfer 🚌 to Brussels center and the Atomium ticket. Finding the stop wasn’t too difficult. When we left the airport, we just had to follow the signs and the crowd. There were two buses ready with a paper on the glass saying “Gare du Midi” that is a station in Brussels center. We entered in one of the buses, showed the tickets and got two seats easily. The transfer duration was about one hour.
After we arrived to Gare du Midi we walked for about 15 minutes to the hotel. It was cold! 🥶
The hotel
Like I said before, we stayed in NH Brussels Louise and the check-in was easy. The receptionist just asked for ours identity cards and for the payment. Then she gave us the room card and we went there to leave our backpacks before going to dinner. The room was nice with all the necessary things for a 2-day stay and ridiculously hot (when I’m saying hot is like 30ºC inside).
On that day we just went out to dinner at a Belgian hamburger 🍔 restaurant chain near the hotel called Quick and then we went back to the hotel to take a hot bath and rest to have energy for the next day.
1st day in Brussels
We woke up early in the morning and went looking for some open place to have breakfast. It was Sunday so there weren’t lots of options. It was really cold, probably the “coldest cold” I’ve ever felt (I almost froze and had a thermal sweater and sheer tights). During the day we explored the city center and the Christmas markets 🎄 all on foot.
2nd day in Brussels
On the second day in the city, we woke up early as well. After we got ready, we quickly packed the bags and checked out at the hotel. We asked the receptionist to keep our backpacks for us so we wouldn’t carry them all day (the returning flight was only at night). Then we took the metro to the Atomium (about 20 minutes travel) and it was there where we spent part of the morning. After visiting this attraction we returned to the center and we continued visiting the city. Later that day, we took the flight back to Porto.
More details about this two days in Brussels I will tell you in other blog posts. 😊
If you want to get the complete itinerary of this trip please download it ➡️ here.
