Window Shopping in France and Belgium

When traveling to new places that I have never been to before I have a tendency to only focus on the buildings and the architecture of the city. As such, I have numerous photos and blog posts that really only take a broad view of a particular location. One thing that I need to get better at when traveling to some place new is taking photos of the details and some of the finer things being offered by the city, like the snacks and the delicacies! Food is often what makes a city truly exciting so I really need to get better at taking photos of those sorts of things. Luckily my wife tends to be a bit better at it so yesterday I asked her to send me some of the photos she took of the cool and interesting food that we saw during our travels. I hope you enjoy.

The first three photos were taken in Brussels, a city known for its extravagant chocolate and candy stores. Belgium in general is famous for its chocolate, so most of the larger cities in the country have a wide assortment of shops dedicated to sugary delishery. With so many candy stores in one place its almost like being immersed in Willy Wankas chocolate factory.

*Delishery is that even a word?

The photo below was also taken in Brussels. More rows of chocolate. Sometimes they seemed endless. Too many to try in one trip, unfortunately.

The next photo is of some desserts from a pastery shop in Amiens France. France is basically known for its bakeries and patisseries so shops like this are extremely common in any city, both big and small. Most cities even have multiple shops to choose from.

Bread of course is also very popular in France. There are nicer bakeries than this one but this photo is kind of neat because it was taken in Amiens at an outdoor market last winter.

Moving into the more savory side of the snack spectrum brings us to this stand found at the same market in Amiens. It was selling cured meats and sausages.

Still fairly common to see in outdoor markets are stalls selling fish and seafood.

This one was selling nothing but oysters which I personally thought was pretty cool.

It was around Christmas time when these photos were taken and this particular market was selling fire cooked salmon on a bun - super fancy street food! No exaggeration on my part, it was probably one of the best street meals I've had in my entire life - top 3 for sure, and I wasn't even drunk at the time which to me says a lot.

Butcher shops are also common in France and probably Europe in general I assume. We generally see several of them in any city that we visit. For us they are a bit of a novelty though because butcher shops really aren't all that common where I'm from in Canada. Though butcher shops do exist back home, I'd say that most meat for most people is only ever bought at the grocery store.

The image below is of something special that is not all that common as far as I can tell. Its called a chapon which is a sterilized rooster. Its sole purpose in life is to live well and get fat. They are generally sold around Christmas time and are sort of like Frances version of a turkey. They are expensive and typically meant to serve several people. We bought one last Christmas and when we told the butcher it was for two people he looked at us a little confused. He brought us the smallest cochon he had and it still cost us 40 euros. It was worth the experience though.

The last photo brings us back to Belgium (Ghent this time) to the oldest butcher shop in the city. The historic site was actually converted into a very unique modern day restaurant. Traditionally ham is hung in a cool cellar in order to age. In the restaurant in the winter, there are still dozens of hams hanging from the ceiling above diners heads. Pretty neat to see. The experience was cool and the food was excellent there as well.

Well, thats it for now. Until next time. Thanks for reading!