Another Taste of Brussels

By Elizabeth Johnstone

Buoyed up by the success of my solo trip to Brussels in May – for a concert by a Finnish Mensan friend and her musical partner – I organised a similar trip with my husband in October.

We booked a Cresta Holidays package through our local Co-op Travel.  The return on Eurostar was uneventful.  We stayed at the Atlas Hotel whose interior was not quite as splendid as its exterior suggested, but was clean and cosy with friendly staff and free WiFi.  The breakfast was fine as long as you stuck to the delicious fresh baked goods, cheese and charcuterie.  I will draw a veil over the coffee and the self-service machine from which it emerged.  The hotel’s location was excellent, a few minutes’ stroll from the old fish market in the Ste Cathérine district with its many seafood restaurants.  We ate there all four evenings.

I didn’t do much sightseeing in May so we invested in “Brussels Cards” - 72 hours for €40 – covering all public transport and most major museums, with some discounts and special offers.  A challenge to my inner Scot! These things only work if you want to visit the attractions in the first place, but we got our money’s worth over the weekend.

On the first afternoon, we wandered around the Grand Place and the narrow streets nearby.  In May, the square was partially obscured by a sound stage for the Jazz Festival.  This time, it was clear until the Marathon which finished around Sunday lunchtime.

We walked down to the Manneken Pis statue, past the lace shop where bystanders were sternly admonished not to eat their waffles in front of its windows.  En route to our hotel we had already passed the statue of a dog relieving itself, the Zinneke Pis.  I wasn’t entirely disappointed to miss the sister statue of Jeanneke Pis.

Next day, we headed to the Belgian Comic Strip Center (sic).  Comic strips are held in high regard in Belgium and referred to as the “Ninth art”. The Museum is housed in the former Waucquez Warehouse, an Art Nouveau gem.  Glasgow has Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Brussels has Victor Horta.  I enjoyed the museum, but all the signage was exclusively in French and Dutch.  I can imagine Belgian visitors sighing nostalgically at the wealth of comic strips and their creators.  We only really knew Kuifje - “little quiff”- Belgium’s most famous son, aka Tintin.  A pleasant morning in light, airy surroundings rounded off with coffee in the Horta Brasserie. With hindsight, I may regret being photographed sitting in a comic strip time machine.  Oh well, personal dignity is over-rated.

We walked on to the Cathedral, via the museum of the National Bank of Belgium, where inflation was explained in typically Belgian fashion – in bilingual comic strips.

After lunch, we headed to the Musical Instruments Museum, in the splendidly renovated Old England Building.  I bet every child in Brussels comes here with a worksheet and clipboard. I loved it. Hundreds of musical instruments from every period of history and every continent, spread over three extensive floors of a renovated Art Nouveau warehouse building.  Stand in front of any display and your headset plays the appropriate music.  No language barrier.

The next day’s sightseeing began with a trip out to another of Brussels’ iconic tourist destinations – the Atomium.  Built originally for the 1958 World Exposition, it was restored in 2006. Unfortunately, we had brought British weather with us.  My photos from inside and out show artistic rain-spattered effects.  We got off the Underground at Heysel, a name synonymous for us with the stadium disaster of 1985.

We returned to the city centre and called in at the brewery museum in the Grand Place, enjoying our pre-lunch dégustation of the beer of the week.  My husband very decently accompanied me round the Museum of Costume and Lace, although we both sped up when a horde of little 8-year old girls arrived shrieking and giggling.

We braced ourselves for a dose of high culture on Sunday.  However, as we exited the Parc underground station, we found ourselves on the Marathon/Half Marathon route and paused to admire the stamina (or otherwise) of the runners.  Most impressive to see the army cadets running in team formation, brandishing banners and uttering bloodcurdling chants. 

We had arranged to meet a Belgian Mensan friend at the Museum of Ancient Art.  I have a particular fondness for Flemish Primitives after my appetite was whetted by the Memlings in Bruges and there was a fine selection. I also enjoyed the details - some scurrilous, all colourful – in the works of Bruegel père et fils.

At last we succumbed to cultural overload and gratefully sought out a café for a sandwich and beer.  The Magritte Museum would have to wait for another day, not to mention the other magnificent museums in and around the Place Royale.

Fortunately, a respite from the rain allowed us to wander around the park, admiring the wacky exhibits in the Brusselicious project, before a final coffee in a trendy café on the Mont des Arts, admiring the aptly named “Le Square”. Why does English have such kudos?

Our friend gave a scholarly disquisition on the historical, social and linguistic complexities of his native land, which led me to ask in bafflement “Is Belgium actually a real place?”  All too soon, it was time to part ways, and my husband and I strolled back across the city, tut-tutting at the discarded water bottles and other post-Marathon trash in the Grand Place.

That evening, as every other evening, we had exactly one speciality beer at the bar “Au Vieux Port” before selecting our seafood restaurant at the Quai aux Briques.  Somewhere there is a photo of me in a lobster bib which will never see the light of day.

Our train departed at lunchtime the next day, so there was time for a last supermarket shop.  No doubt shares in Delhaize rose sharply on the stock market after my foray into the cheeses, baked goods, groceries etc. 

Our return was straightforward, although this nervous traveller was somewhat cross to spend longer in the Tunnel because of French security personnel getting off at Calais-Fréthun.

We had a great weekend, but there was more to see – the other museums in the Place Royale, the Parc Cinquantaire with its museums, the EU district, colourful outlying suburbs, not to mention day trips to Ghent, Antwerp or Bruges.  And with a travel time of two hours ten minutes from London, Brussels could well be on the agenda again!

First published in VISA 106 (December 2012)