April 19, 2025
The sun has finally reappeared!! We are once again going though a series of locks that will now take us up 185 feet and then we head to Brussels, Belgium the final stop for the cruise.
The City of Brussels is the largest municipality and historical centre of the Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the Flemish Region and Belgium. The City of Brussels is also the administrative centre of the European Union, as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions in its European Quarter.
It is also the home of NATO headquarters.
My adventure for the day is to become a Belgian chocolate-maker!! From recipes to beginning-to-end instruction, we learned to temper the chocolate, craft pralines (filled chocolates) and create the perfect ganache (filling) from scratch! While we worked, we learned the history of Belgian chocolate and the importance of fair trade cocoa beans. As the pralines cooled we learned to make French mendiants (topping-garnished chocolate discs) and enjoyed divine Belgian hot chocolate. At the end of the workshop,I had a beautiful take-home box filled with almost 2 dozen of chocolates I made!!! A messy job but so much fun. We will see how many make it home to share with friends. Maybe I will need to have a workshop for the gang and share my learnings. I will proudly add chocolatier to my resume. Maybe Willie Wonka is hiring.
What an incredible “Best Day Ever….So Far!!!
