Hotel St. Michael

Brussels, Belgium is a wonderful city. Our first time there we wanted to see the Grand Place. The Grand Place is a huge square, lined with beautiful old buildings. We sat at an outdoor restaurant eating an ice cream sundae and enjoying the beauty of the place.

We hadn’t found a hotel yet and were wondering where we would stay for the night. Sandra said, “Look across the square, there’s a small sign that says Hotel St. Michel.” We walked over and asked if they had a room for a couple of nights. The desk clerk said the only thing they had available is the Honeymoon Suite. I told the clerk that we would take it. This was the year 1986, and the fee was $ 25 per night.

Parking is not allowed in the Grand Place. They have special events taking place almost every day. Our fist night there, we witnessed a wonderful band concert by a Belgian Army Band. We walked to the restaurant where they had huge vats of boiling water for cooking muscles.

The next day there was a huge flower market in the square. Thousands of flowers from all over Europe were on sale. As we went to dinner, the flower vendors were beginning to pack up. We had a leisurely dinner with too much wine. When we entered the square all the vendors were done, and all the garbage cans were filled with beautiful flowers. I started picking flowers out of the garbage cans. Sandra said, “Billy, you don’t take stuff out of garbage cans”. I said “I do.” I filled my arms with flowers and took them back to the hotel room. We filled every container that we could find with bouquets of flowers. The window sill in our room was about 15-inches wide and made of stone. We opened a bottle of wine and sat on the window sill without legs hanging out of the window. We sat drinking wine and throwing flowers into the crowd below. People were laughing and waving at us, and we laughed and waved back. What a fun night it was.

We have been back to Brussels on two more occasions and we always stay at the Hotel St. Michael.