I was roped into working a Saturday so I had to postpone my day-trip to Brussels to Sunday, and cancel my plans for Ghent. (technically I could have visited in the afternoon, but I'm not so interested in seeing the city after dark)
The weather forecast promised some sun, but I arrived in a drizzling and cold Brussels. There weren't many sketch reports on Brussels, but I did find a few more points of interests other than Grand-Place. The weather was wet, so I thought I'd save Grand-Place for later, in case the weather clears up. I instead "warmed up" under the canopy of a coffee shop's deserted outdoor area, drawing the stock exchange building that was mentioned in another sketcher's trip report. The soft mop was really pleasant to work with in the somewhat humid weather.
Then the sky cleared up (yay!) and I headed back to the Grand-Place. There was some graduation ceremony taking place so parts of the square were taken up. However there were plenty of space around the edges. I'm surprised the scene kind of worked out despite the 2 main buildings being super tall.
I then headed out of the main tourist area and found this cute castle like city gate Porte de Hal. The sun was nice and so I just sat down near a parked car on the pavement
I was originally planning to head home on the 5pm train, but the weather was so nice and I only had one more page to go on this sketchbook, so I decided to do one last one for Notre Dame au Sablon. It had some pretty complex structures, but I'm really happy with how it turned out and intense the sunlight felt. The train ride home was extremely crowded at 6pm, fully packed shoulder to shoulder from Brussels till Louvain. Thankfully after most of the passengers got off I got to at least sit down for the rest of journey to Liege.
It was only after I bought a new Tintin hardcover book in full price that I realized I was in Brussels and could literally walk into any bookstore (and there were plenty) and pick up a used version for 1/4 of the price...ooops
