After the success of the chaotic single-day trip to Lisbon a couple of months prior, I'd been dying for another trip - this time one I'd fully organise myself. After convincing a friend to join me, on the 24th April we took a 6:40am flight to Charleroi Airport, taking a 1hr coach to Brussels from there to Bruxelles-Midi station, and then later took the same coach and a 7:35pm flight to get back to Manchester. Unfortunately, I hadn't picked the best day. The city was shrouded in an immensely dense fog, a protest was going on, lots of the attractions were covered in scaffolding, there were delays at the airport due to staff striking, and there was near-constant rain that made photos difficult. We still had a great time, though!
We took the 6:40am flight to Charleroi (or "Brussels-South" as Ryanair insists on calling it). We arrived at Charleroi at 8:05am local time and then took a coach from the airport, to Brussels itself. We started off going East from Bruxelles-Midi station and visited the Porte de Hal and the Palais de Justice (both of which were covered in scaffolding). At this point, the weather was pretty terrible. I could barely take any photos or else I'd risk my camera getting drenched, and all the attractions weren't in the best state. Regardless, we went further to the city's Royal Quarter, and that's when our luck began to change. When we reached the city's Palace, and the Parc de Bruxelles, the rain had died off a fair bit, and by the time we reached what is in my eyes the city's best attraction, the Grand-Place, all that was left was the fog! I took some great photos of the absolutely stunning Square, and then we went off to see the city's... weird statues. We then walked down to the city's canal, and finally looped back around the Royal Quarter again, and returned to the station. Despite the bad weather at the start, it was still a really fun trip!