We flew from Edinburgh airport at 15:10, and with a good tail wind we arrived early at Brussels Charleroi airport (actually about 30 miles south of Brussels). We had pre-booked the shuttle bus into Brussels, so went outside and caught one straight away.
This took about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Brussels Midi station. When we got there it was raining heavily. Due to the recent terrorist scares, it was immediately obvious that security was tight, there were pairs of soldiers with machine guns everywhere - stations, hotels, offices, attractions etc.
We caught the Metro to Louise station, then the tram down Avenue Louise a couple of stops. We then walked up the the apartment where Sylviane our host was waiting for us. We'd booked it on Airbnb, it was reasonably priced and had everything we needed. Sylviane showed us around then left, having recommended a local cafe.
We unpacked then went out for a walk, it was quite wet so we didn't want to go far, so we just went round the block. It turned out that the cafe was a wine bar and didn't sell beer, so we didn't stay. Not wanting to walk further we went to a grocery store, bought some beer, wine and pizza and went back to make our own dinner.
