This is a photo of the area around the Royal Palace, which is just off to the right of the picture. On the left is the edge of the park.

"Rue de Bouchers" in central Brussels, a restaurant tourist trap, although at first glance the prices didn't look that bad...

A closer view of Rue de Bouchers restaurants. There are often people standing outside trying to convince you to dine there but we weren't sucked in one bit. It helped that we'd just had a lovely baguette that was exceptionally cheap for lunch!

Brussels has a lot of statues! This one is just around the corner from the Royal Palace and in the middle of a busy traffic roundabout, Belgium-style with trams buses and cars. We didn't fancy braving the traffic to find out who this was.

"Parc Egmont" a small garden not far from the Royal Palace. Quite nice considering the season - winter and a chilly 3 degrees outside...

The same park as the last photo with statue of 'Egmont'. We assume that's where Mt Egmont (NZ) got the name???

Parc Egmont again.... The white ball thingys were probably lit up at night we think although didn't see that...Further down you will see some other spheres that were in the main square of Brussels.

We nearly toured the basement of the Palace. Instead we took this rather good photo through some small glass windows in the door. Came out rather well, considering!

A photo of the royal Palace, usually it's open to the public and is admission free but we think it must have been closed for the winter, as attraction often are here in Europe.

Across the very wide road from the palace is a formal garden with a whole lot more statues, fountain etc. We didn't stay long to look around but did rest our weary feet and get a couple of photos.

Gardeners at the palace garden have worked hard to lattice the branches of many of the trees in the garden, must look quite spectacular in the other seasons!

Not too far from our hotel is the 'Palais de Justice' which houses some parliamentary body for Belgium. A very large building, if you look closely you can see a person near the front door who was coming out of it!

There are some amazing shops in Brussels, and wonderful displays of goods, like this handmade glass chess set. The tallest of the pieces would be about 25cm tall, it really was magnificent.

In the Grand square in central Brussels was a life-size nativity scene....

"Grand Place" the central square, is surrounded by building after building, built by craft guilds centuries ago. Most of them have gold detail and very flash facades. Not the best shopping here!