You can get a classic moules-frites dinner with mussels, fries and a beer for about €13 in Brussels; Grand Place/Grote Markt is the central square of Brussels and recognized by UNESCO

Several weeks ago, Professor Peter Scholliers of Vrije Universiteit in Brussels stopped by to give our class some lectures on Belgian and European food history of the 19th and 20th centuries. Soon afterwards, one of my roommates noticed that Ryanair flights from Torino to Brussels were quite inexpensive, and there was a four-day weekend coming up, so we made a spontaneous decision to treat ourselves to a weekend in Belgium. After all, isn’t the point of living in Europe that you can fly off at a moment’s notice to another country? I’d like to think we were inspired by class, so this was really a didactic experience anyway.

Some logistical information: Ryanair flights from Torino land in Charleroi, a small airport about 60 km south of Brussels that serves a number of budget airlines. To get from Charleroi airport to Brussels proper, you can either take the Autocars l’Elan shuttle bus to Gare du Midi (€13/22 rt, tickets sold on board), or you can hop on a bus (€2,70) to the Charleroi train station and then take a train from there to Brussels (€8,60). The shuttle is slightly more expensive and takes less time, while the bus + train combo allows you to go to any of Brussels’ three main train stations (Midi, Centraal, Nord). This was also my first time flying Ryanair, and that is an experience in itself. Luckily, I was too tired to notice much of my surroundings, but the flight was essentially a 90-minute long informercial, as the airline attendants hawked food, credit cards, lottery tickets, something or another to save the children…At the end of the flight, they played a trumpet reveille to announce that the plane had landed on time. Thank god, because I was ready to jump out the window.
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