Brussels: Not a sprout in sight

Haydn in the Grand Place (Grote Markt)

We had only got as far as the Grand Place (Grote Markt) when Drew exclaimed: 

I've seen loads of chocolate, Praline and Waffle shops, but not a single sprout!

he wasn't wrong. Brussels sprouts are, like the other brassicas, native of the Mediterranean, but it seems they first appeared in northern Europe during the 5th century [Co-pilot's notes : He is, dear reader, full of interesting facts like this!!]. For many years in the 13th century, they were cultivated near this city which is how they got their English name, their French name - Choux de Bruxelles - has the same root, though in Flemish and German they don't have a local connection; Spruitjes in Flemish and Dutch and Rosenkohl in German. More details of the sights of Brussels (without sprouts) are to follow, but for now on with the description of the day.

Early Morning

Our early morning wasn't as early as we normally are. I didn't wake until 6am (OK that would be my more usual 5am if I was still on UK time) but it seemed late. I got up, made cups of coffee for us both, with the kettle in the room and some instant sachets - the taste wasn't as bad as some instants. 

I used the time to blog about Friday and then got showered, shaved, brushed my teeth and did other ablutions (regular readers will know that I don't describe this daily, but simply say - did our ablutions. But in the spirit of brassicas, I wanted to mention the shower this morning as I was amused to see that the shampoo in the hotel was Purple Kale, something I love eating, but not something I necessarily want to smell like! The body gel was parsley - so I was having a very vegetable morning, while also singing the Parsley the Lion song from the cartoon from my childhood called 'The Herbs'. 

Breakfast

Meat and Cheese

Bread, pastries and eggs

The breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express is free as part of the booking (a cynic might say you pay for it in the room cost - those marketers, who can trust them!). We went down at 8am and enjoyed the hospitality. I went for meat, cheese, salad and some lovely seedy bread rolls. 

Drew had a similar breakfast to me and then moved on to his sweet treats, breakfast dessert as you might say.

We went back to the room and sorted ourselves out prior to our departure at 9am.

Morning in Brussels

The Brussels Stock Market with beach volleyball in front!

I had no expectation about my visit to Brussels - I'd visited three times while delivering an MBA programme from the Open University to the IBM middle managers who would fly in for the weekend from throughout Europe to the IBM training facility on the edge of the city. Most times all I saw of Brussels was the trip from the airport to the training facility. I have a vague memory of the Grand Place and eating Frites on one of the trips when my flight back to Cardiff was the following morning, not the same day. (I saw more of Milan where I delivered to another group of their managers; as Italians have a very civilised way of having to leave the training for an espresso twice or three times a day).

In the end there was so much to see and do that having left the hotel at 9am it was 5pm when we returned. An eight-hour sightseeing day. Our route looked like this:

and Google tells me that was 9.5 miles or 23,000 steps. Though there was so much to see it didn't feel that long or that tiring.

We walked along the route from the hotel to the Grand Plas, here we saw an urban garden (see above) set up as a kids play area for the summer and a number of beach volleyball courts, where the sand had been brought in in front of the Stock Market and the Theatre Royal - august buildings of what in the UK would would call the Victorian style (also see above).

I think if you want a real feel for this exploration it would be worth linking to my Flickr page, as the story works best as a picture blog than in words, for example we have 35 photos of the Grand Place - if you start here and have the 'date taken' view on (I upload them in reverse order as that's how the software works, so the 'Date Uploaded' view can be confusing) you should be able to follow along.

We spent some time in the Church of St. Nicholas, one of the oldest in the City, though the modern facade belays the 10th century origin of this site. St. Nicholas, more famous under his Dutch name Santa Claus (Sinterklaas), is the patron saint of children and this church houses a year round nativity. The statues in the nativity are unusual - There is a tight rope-walker and a couple eating frites, which I don't remember in the biblical versions of the story!

From St. Nicholas', we walked the short distance to the Grand Plas, as mentioned in Drew's quote above, the main shops are for Chocolate, Praline and Waffles all of which are seen as central to the life of the city.

There is even a chocolate museum, but we resisted the temptation to enter.

Waffles, often topped with lots of cream and less fruit, seem to be everywhere here. One shop combines the waffle with images associated with the Manneken Pis.

Taking of the said Manneken, this is perhaps the busiest place in the city, we manage to get a shot of the statue, but were also interested in the range of people who queue up to get one.

From the Mannakin we walk up a road called Rue du Chêne and pass the Le Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, so I am reminded of my friend Antonia Collins who worked for many years to enhance learning and teaching at the Welsh Conservatoire, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama  and died this year, she was a regular contributor to these holiday blogs for many years. 

We next came to an area which Drew said he thought should have lots of students and hostels, certainly it was less prosperous than the city centre. However, going a little of track proved to have dividends as the walk brought us to the old medieval city wall and Anneessens Tower

Beyond the walls are an ancient church, originally Benedictine, called Notre Dame de la Chapelle, originally built in 1210, it has been renovated and restored at various periods since then. 

The church is a huge well used space and has some amazing stained-glass, life-size statues and evidence of medevial wall paintings now visible again after years when they had been whitewashed. I'm particularly interested in these as a neighbour of mine works in restoring such paintwork and spent many years doing so at the Church of St. Teilo at St. Fagans National Museum of History. 

More photos of this church can be seen on the flickr page starting here. 

Taking a break

Our next stop after Notre Dame de la Chapelle was an area called Sablon, this is the heart of the historic Upper Town where the government of the Southern Netherlands and subsequently Belgium, took place. 

Sablon has a street market and another large church, plus by this time we are ready for a break from our walk and the chance to buy a coffee. We stopped in a cafe called Café du Sablon. Here I try my best French and we manage to have a black coffee and latte without resorting to any English. 

We sat outside the café and enjoy the people passing by, though the reminder that our drinks are ready still scared Drew even though he knew it was coming!  

The next excitement were the loos, which were well signposted from the cafe side but involved a very steep and seemingly unlikely set of stairs

If you look carefully you can see someone has scrawled wc at the bottom of the stairs - so we may not have been the first to have found it surprising. Even more surprise was to occur below as there was a lobby with sinks and urinals before you get to the male and female stalls. This has the effect of me peeing in an urinal with a women behind me washing her hands - a first for me!

Afternoon in Brussels

As we sat enjoying our coffee we noticed that next to the cafe was a park the Square du Petit Sablon, this park includes a flower garden, but more strikingly a lot of statues including a fountain at the centrepiece representing the Counts of Egmont and Hornes who were beheaded for resisting Spanish rule.

There are also ten large statues representing the famous  humanists of the 16th century 

and a further 48 representing the various guilds which influenced Brussels at that time.

As we were taking the statues it began to rain for the first time this holiday and we were grateful for our Macs in Sacs which we bought this time last year when at a National Park centre in Dartmoor and have remembered to bring with us this holiday. 

We crossed the road into the Church of Our Lady of Sablon, Notre-Dame du Sablon, which like the other churches we saw today was very blessed with stained glass, statues and relics of saints. An amazing place out of the rain and full of light and colour and some huge windows.

The legend of the Church is that a young girl from Antwerp had a vision that the Virgin Mary asked her to take her image to Brussels. The girl took a boat to the capital and handed a statue of the Virgin to the archer’s guild where a church was established on this site. The story is well depicted in the large statue of a boat and girl and statue at the front of the church. 

The walk continued as we headed via the Library of Brussels

to the Mont De Arts with its gardens, statues and fine buildings, including the other side of the Library. The gardens really are a treat:

Moving up the Mont des Arts we come across an oldy worldy Department Store that immediately brings to my mind Terry Pratchett's Arnold Bros store. This one looks of the same vintage and is called Old England

 it is now a music shop and probably doesn't have any nomes.

Our afternoon continued with a visit to the Parc de Bruxelles, this large park directly in front, over a main road, of the Royal Palace is picturesque in its own right.

But was even more fun today as there is currently a display by Philippe Geluck of his fun character Le Chat. Poor Drew had to run back and for across the path to get his [Co-Pilot's Note: ?, Dear Readers?] photos - perhaps this is why his step count is a lot higher than my, already high, one today.

Le Chat led us to the Federal Parliament Building of Brussels

and down the hill we came to Brussels Cathedral or to give it its more formal title, the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula 

what fun, more photos of stained glass!! My friend Robin Croft, who takes some wonderful photos of his own - see here - is great at naming saints in statues and stained glass, lucky as on this holiday I've only got time to edit and upload the photos, not to name them too - thanks Robin. My photos from the Cathedral can be found here. Do have a look they are spectacular, both the paintings and Drew's capture of them in the photos.

EU here we come - Please!

On coming out of the Cathedral I gave Drew two options for the rest of the day - visit the Atomium, a Brussels icon a few miles out of the City, or visit the former seat of our international Government - the EU buildings. Drew, who like me hopes that we will live long enough so that we can return to international mainstream and not our current pariah status, choose the EU. 

This proved a reminder of why I like plans - if we had chosen to build this into the original plan of the day, we would have gone from Parc Bruxelles to the EU parliament and then on to Le Berlaymont, the Government building. Now we had to retrack our steps, you can see the cross-over in the map above. Still it was worth it to celebrate the nature of this unbelievable organisation which has done so well for people across Europe since 1952, when it was the European Coal and Steel Community. 

We made it to the Parliament first

EU Parliament

EU Parliament

As Drew noted there is one less flag than there should be!

Le Berlaymont

And the same again here.

Our veneration done we walked back past the Lake in Marie-Louise Square with its ducks.

and got back to the hotel just before 5pm.

Things I've forgotten

This is the longest blog post I've ever posted, but it was such an amazing day I wanted to share as much as I can of a day which has already made the decision to travel in Europe on holiday so, so worthwhile. I didn't expect to have almost 500 more photos at the end of the day than at the beginning, but I will come back to look at them for a long time. There will be things I've missed and as I finish this post I know one big one - the street art in Brussels - this includes evidence of Herge - with Tintin, Captain Haddock and Snowy, it also shows the Smurfs another creation of this town. Then you have the surreal photos of Rene Magritte which have popped up in town. I've included some in this animation - not all by any means, by now you know where to go and find the rest - yep, Flickr!

Thank you for taking the time to read this - I'm sorry it is so long, but I know I for one will be back here reading it a year hence and some more. I know because I so often check back on my previous year's blogs to jog my memory and be happy knowing all that we have done.