Itinerary of my day trip in Brussels: Saint Michael and Saint Gudula cathedral - part 1

Last week, I went on a day trip to Brussels and it is the first time I traveled to another country by train. I often take the airplane instead as a return ticket to many European cities can cost less than €100. But traveling by train has its charm too, so I decided to go to Brussels, which is one of the destinations that has the least travel time to get there. On a relaxing break, I really want to avoid getting travel sickness.

I will share some useful information about my trip to Brussels from Rotterdam Central station. This will be divided in several parts, as there are just too many pictures.
 

Train from Rotterdam to Brussels and back

With the Intercity (IC) train, it costs €61.60 (one outbound and one return ticket). You can buy the tickets at the NS International website and you can choose to get a mobile ticket that will show up in the NS International app or to print them at home. You need to be able to pay with iDeal, Visa, Mastercard, or AMEX. If that's isn't an option for you, you can still buy the tickets at the machines at the train station on the day itself. At the machines, you can also find the "Superdagretour" tickets (value day return tickets), which I bought and couldn't find much information about online. For a day return ticket Rotterdam-Brussels, I only paid €40.40. The only catch is that you can only travel after 09:00 on weekdays, but you can travel whenever you want on weekends, during the months Juli and August, and on public holidays. It takes about 2 hours to get to Brussels from Rotterdam with the Intercity trains. The seats were very comfortable, but after 1.5 hours, I started to get a little bit of a backache and I wanted to move my legs. I really wanted to get out at the Antwerp stop instead. ^_^ 

You can also consider taking the Thalys train (travel time is about 1.5 hours), but the price would be €126 and I think I can even buy a plane ticket for that price and the travel time would only be about 45 minutes.

My day in Brussels

After the 2-hour long train ride, I got off at Brussels Central Station.

Basically, my day looked like this: Brussels Central station -> Saint Michael and Saint Gudula cathedral -> Les Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert -> Manneken Pis -> Grand-Place -> Brussels Central station. I went to all places by foot. It was quite a nice walk, not too tiring.

Since I wasn't really familiar with Brussels, I think I took the tough road to the tourist sites. From the Brussels Central Station, I went from Cantersteen street -> Koloniënstraat -> Treurenberg (where I saw a very fairytale like church building, which seems to be back part of the Sint-Michiels en Sint-Goedelekathedraal) and ended at the Sinter-goedelevoorplein. It was a very steep walk upwards, so I really needed to rest a bit at the Saint Michael and Saint Gudula cathedral.

Saint Michael and Saint Gudula cathedral (in Dutch: Sint-Michiels- en Sint-Goedelekathedraal)

I was starting to get a bit lost, when I saw this beautiful, fairy tale like building.

It looks so amazing that I was drawn towards it.

When I walked around that building to find the possible entrance, I discovered that it is a large cathedral with a beautiful park view. There were a lot of benches, so taking a short breather was quite pleasant.

The entrance to the Saint Michael and Saint Gudula cathedral is free and you can find more info over here. 

Afterwards, I went via Rue de la montagne to Les Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert.