First of all, if you look at the map of Brussels districts, you will see that Bruxelles-Ville stretches up to north city borders, so we're not talking about the strict city center here. The area we're in used to be separate municipality called Neder-Over-Heembeek (lower-upper-heem-spring), and the name is still used to refer to it. Just next to big military hospital, we arrive at Nos Pilifs.
There's so many great things about that place, I find it hard to decide where should I start!
So first of all, it's a place you want to take your kids along with you. The access to the premises is absolutely free for everyone. There's a small playground available and then you can go for a long walk around the farm to see all the animals. And they have a lot of them!
Lots of different kinds of poultry, but also horses, goats, sheep, donkeys, and the biggest pigs I have seen in my life (just think of all the bacon!).
All animals are behind a fence (and some of them are behind an electric fence too). This is not a pet-zoo, children can't touch the animals, it is also strictly forbidden to feed them (except the pigs, no surprise).
When you're done with the tour, it's time to rest and maybe have a bite. Just in front of the playground (how convenient!) there's a small bistro with choice of beers, soft drinks and some food. The choice is not big, but I'm pretty sure the pancakes I had were fried on wood-kitchen - it gave them taste so amazing it didn't matter they were burnt a tiny bit - I ate them quicker than I could take a photo.
Now that you ate, you can do some shopping (never shop with an empty stomach!). In place you will find a small bio-shop which sells local produce and other bio-food. Wide selection of vegetables, fruits, cheese, and bread baked on wood.
On the other side you'll find a plant shop. The interior plants looked absolutely amazing.
The exterior ones were only slowly emerging after long winter, so they didn't yet look as impressive, but you can see the choice is great, and plants seem to be well taken care of.
That's a well spent day!
As a word of background, the farm is run by society that hires handicapped people. They have capacity of around 140 workers (as seen on their website). I find it a great initiative, that only adds to the splendor of the place.
And kept for the end, the thing I will absolutely have to try. Online store! In the country where 99% of commerce doesn't even exist in the internet (Chris read some statistics lately), here you can actually order all the best food with delivery to your nearest point of pickup (initially I thought they deliver straight home, but we didn't find a way to do that, still good enough).
I highly recommend that place. We'll be back! :)
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