#215: World Cup City - MAP + BONUS CONTENT

Day 49: The End of the Road

Welcome to the final entry of this Brussels Notes series exploring the 48 participating countries of the 2026 World Cup, without leaving Brussels. Read the explainer, check out the 48 entries, and then subscribe.

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You didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you? Now, when I started out on the journey to visit each of the 48 World Cup countries without leaving Brussels, I had intended that the series would culminate with the last of the 48 newsletter entries on the day of the final. But because maths is not my strong suit (ask L), I miscalculated and very soon realised that 1 June + 48 did not equal 19 July.

And because it would have gnawed at me if I had ended the series a day early, I’m sharing a short bonus newsletter, with:

• An interactive map featuring each of the 48 countries

• A collection of highlights, lowlights, surprises, disappointments

• Stray observations

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INTERACTIVE MAP

Several readers have said the series has prompted them to visit places previously unknown to them, or return to locations they have not been in years. To help with that discovery process, I have put together an interactive Google Map featuring each of the locations visited across the 48 articles. I couldn’t embed it here, so you’ll have to click here or on the image below to access it.

The map is a cross-section of Brussels’ diversity and variety that you’re not going to get anywhere else, so get out there and use it!

Click to explore

HIGHLIGHTS

There were many. Senegal is one I keep coming back to, as a country whose food I was unaware of and the experience of which was a pleasure. I had such a great time talking New Zealand wine with Max at Crush Wines, and his shop was a real little find that I will go back to again. The same goes for Life is Beautiful and the conversation I had with Karoline about rum from Haiti. Previously I’d only ever gone into the shop for bottles of pretentious Italian Amaro (my weakness), and it was nice to discover another side to it. The German war graves in Evere were impressive in a sombre way, finding the Llanes open is always a (rare) treat), and who could forget Mr Falafel - probably the most welcoming experience of the whole project.

LOWLIGHTS

Now, it has to be said up front that these lowlights refer to me and mostly to me, not the places I visited. The obvious one to start off with is me chickening out of the Ghanaian restaurant in St Josse. A close second however, and this didn’t appear in the article, was failing to get myself in gear to visit one of the several Tango dance nights that take place in Brussels for the Argentina entry - I say it was poor time management, but it was also partly cowardice; I am a terrible dancer. The less said about O’Tacos the better, and I am still ashamed that I could not bring myself to finish the bottle of fermented carrot soda I ordered on the Haachtsesteenweg - I just don’t get salty beverages!

DISCOVERIES

So many. Zina, the Tunisian place on Rue des Deux Eglises. MyDay on Rue Haute. The Lara Balkan supermarket in Molenbeek (more on that below). Chez Léon - as someone on Bluesky remarked, a tourist destination, but not a tourist trap. I will be going back for more strudel at the Viennese coffee house in the autumn, I am already hankering for some more Iranian dates, and I still intend to return to the Lemesre hat shop for a sailor’s cap for the winter months. And I still remember fondly the citric kick of the Jordanian lemon juice.

DISAPPOINTMENTS

What can I say - every time I visit the Hema in Brussels I am disappointed. It is a pale imitation of its Dutch equivalents - “obsessed with Nijntje”, as N described it the other day - and lacking any of the colour (or food) that makes a trip worthwhile. Do better. I was disappointed (in myself) that I couldn’t find anything remotely Uzbek for that portion of my odyssey, but I did my best at the Russian supermarket. Disappointed, too, in my issues with the textural novelties (for me) that I discovered at the Baobab II - I may need a whole course on how to eat the various iterations of Cassava there are in Central and West African cooking. It remains a crime that we are so underserved by Czech lager in this city. And let us never talk of the Poutine Incident again. Serves me right for bothering to venture into deepest Châtelain.

OBSERVATIONS

Here are a series of random observations I wrote in my notebook or Keep app while compiling this series

• Eating out in Brussels is EXPENSIVE. I tried to keep the costs down by leavening restaurant visits with café and bar stops alongside free excursions (graveyards, streets, etc.). But across the three months and 48 countries visited for the project, I spent €467.18. No mean feat.

• Eating out in Brussels is also, still, hard for vegetarians. I can’t remember exactly when I decided to fall off the wagon, but it must have been somewhere between the Uzbek pork Manti and the Tunisian wrap. But once I did start eating meat again, it was hard to stop; for many countries, their most “iconic” dishes are meat, and meat remains central to many cuisines. It became the path of least resistance for me in cultures I was unfamiliar with to just order the beef or chicken dish. But I drew the line at Argentinian steak. As much for my colon as for my morals.

• On a related note, I am going to be spending the next six months trying to work off all the weight I’ve put on since May.

• Always have your phone charged. Many of the entries in this series involved me visiting a place and sitting ata table with my notebook and writing about what I was experiencing. There were times, though, when pulling my notebook out and setting it on the table would have made me feel even more exposed than I was. So the notebook stayed in its pocket and instead I resorted to the notes app on my phone. A godsend for surreptitiously recording your surroundings. Just make sure it’s charged. Because if you don’t write it down in the moment, the detail of a scene loses its immediacy.

• On a related note, this series is basically just a summary of my eavesdropping on the conversations I have been privy to in restaurants across town. Apologies if you have read one and spotted yourself. Except to the guy who sang “Owner of a Lonely Heart” to his dining companion in Chez Léon.

• I should have expected that covering the Balkans might have ruffled some feathers, and I sincerely apologise to readers from that region for my insensitive attitude to the legacy of the Ottoman empire. My homework has certainly been marked “must do better”, and I will try to. I did not expect to receive hate mail from disgruntled Swiss readers upset at my caricature of their country and culture. And to think I didn’t even reference cuckoo clocks (just kidding - please don’t write in again).

• I love eating alone. The best time to eat in a restaurant in Brussels on your own is lunchtime

• Lists - if there is a through-line to the 48 articles that make up this series, then it is this: they are basically just a list of the things that I saw when I went somewhere. There is a thrill in just going somewhere new or unfamiliar and writing down what you see, hear, smell, and feel. In fact, this whole series has been an exercise in inventorising the city.

• I will never share the chaos that is my planning spreadsheet. I prefer not to disabuse readers of the notion that I am organisationally competent. I am not, but you will never find out to what degree.

And now it’s onto you - what entries were your favourite? What did I miss out, and where should I have gone but didn’t? What should I do next (aside from going on a well-earned holiday)?

Thanks again for reading along, and I look forward to seeing you all for the rentrée.

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Thanks for reading - I’m writer Eoghan Walsh and this is my weekly free-to-subscribe newsletter about life in Brussels. If you like it and you’re not already subscribed, you can sign up here!