We left in heavy fog and returned in heavy fog...did the fog ever lift from the ground in Izel? That we don't know, as we drove to Brussels to explore the capital of Belgium. The fog cleared once we were on the motorway but it was eerily quiet driving to that point through the narrow rural roads past "Our Lady of the Crossroads", as we have named a statue of Mary which seems to have had the road built around her. As we often remark, the roads here were not built for cars and the traffic they now accommodate nowadays as many of the villages have been here for 400 years or more and the roads would have just been tracks.
With a bit of u-turning and
reorientation we found the Park and Ride car park at Delta Metro, parked
our car eventually (We had to teach Karl the etiquette of waiting for a
car park to become free, such as I have practised many times at
Doncaster! He generally refuses to wait for car parks but sometimes it
is necessary! He prefers to park further away and walk instead.). Then
we pooled our coins to feed the ticket machine (2.10 Euros each for a
single Metro ticket) and took the Metro to Gare Centrale.
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| Counting our coins for the ticket machine - lucky we had enough! |
One
of the first things we noticed were the beggars, mostly Gypsies, who
were waiting at each church door and street corner. We did feel sorry
for them and shared some of our lunch with a disheveled chap asking for
money.
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| Beautiful shops along here...drool... |
There are several other things which
were abundant in Brussels: Shop after shop with THE most amazing
chocolates displayed, waffle shops, Belgian lace, and frites (chips).
There were many buskers which did add a lovely ambiance and I'll forever
remember Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" as my Brussels' song as we heard
it from more than one musician.
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| Lace shop with mirror! |
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| The shops are very beautiful |
Two things were missing in Brussels:
easy to find public toilets and public seating. The only seats were
attached to cafes and the only toilets we could find were at McDonalds
and charged 30 cents each. We had our picnic lunch standing up opposite
the old Stock Exchange building. It is possible that during summer,
there are places to sit, but it is definitely not summer now!
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| I think I'd like to work at this shop! |
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| The iconic Manneken Pis |
Brussels
is well signposted and we followed the directions to Manneken Pis, the
famous statue of the little boy weeing. To our dismay, he had been
dressed in clothes! He is quite small, but somehow has become an icon
of Brussels.
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| Manneken Pis - turns up everywhere! |
The
old part of Brussels was reserved for pedestrians only which was
excellent after having to dodge bikes at every turn in Amsterdam. The
buildings are lovely, mostly 17th Century and we all gasped with
amazement as we walked into the Grotemarkt (Grand Place) and saw all the
impressive buildings with their gilt trimmings. Brussels is a lot more
Flemish than French as far as architecture and culture go whereas the
Ardennes is certainly French in every way.
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| Brussels City Hall |
The Town Hall is seriously jaw dropping especially when one considers that parts of it were built
between 1401 and
1455! It is very tall, hard to capture in a photo with a standard
camera with its tower being 96 metres tall. On top of this is St
Michael slaying a demon or devil. Between 1504 and 1536, to show his ducal power versus the municipal power, the Duke of Brabant built a large building across the square.
It is known as the Breadhouse after the original bread market on the
site. Wealthy members of the guilds built their guild houses around the
square. It is indeed lovely. No wonder it is a UNESCO World Heritage
site!
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| The old guild houses |
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| In the Grotemarkt |
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| The Breadhouse |
We
can thank Karel Buls, Mayor of Brussels from 1881-1899, who fought to
preserve the old parts of Brussels and protected the facades of the
buildings of Grotemarkt. He also erected signs in both Dutch and
French. We saw his statue in Place Agoraplein.
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| Karel Buls - Mayor of Brussels 1881-1899 |
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| Definitely Dutch architecture here |
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| Inside St Nicolas' Church |
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| Why not? A pink shoe slide! |
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| One of many buskers |
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| Fountains everywhere...no doubt they freeze in winter. |
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| Autumn chocolate display - delicious |
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| Meringue shop |
Not wanting to wander aimlessly around the city, Karl, Luke and I went
to the Tourist Information Office for some guidance while Tim and Annika
waited in the long queue at "Friteland" for the famous frites. Even
after taking our time at the Tourist Office, Tim and Annika were still
queuing for frites! When we did get our cones of frites, they were
really nice and we could see why they were so popular...and they were
served in cones which was a real must for us in our Belgian experience!
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| Friteland queue! |
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| Just what we needed...so cold! |
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| ...and in a cone! |
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| Frites faces! |
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| Where should we go? Brussels is well signed |
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| Remains of old city walls. |
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| Painter Pieter Breughel's house |
Armed with our map (and full tummies!)
we headed in the direction of the Royal Palace and down to the free
glass elevator as recommended by the guide. We happened to walk past
Brueghel, the famous Belgian painter's house!
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| View over Brussels from Palace of Justice |
The
glass elevator goes to the next level of the city just outside the
Palais de Justice, the largest courthouse in the world. Building
finally commenced in 1866 but it had been years in the planning. A
competition was held to design the courthouse in 1860, but all of the
designs were rejected. An architect, Joseph Poelaert was eventually
appointed to design it.
At the end of the WWII on the eve of the liberation
of Brussels, the retreating Germans
started a fire in the Palace of Justice in order to destroy it. It was
severely
damaged but by 1947 most of the repairs were completed with the cupola
two and a half metres higher ! Sounds like they were still determined
to have the biggest courthouse!
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| The huge Palace of Justice |
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| Brussels' roof tops |
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| Couldn't have said it better myself! |
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| The very lovely Notre Dame of Our Lady of Sablon |
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| 17th Century interior - very grand |
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| Many candles from the many visitors - warmly glowing |
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| J B Rousseau - French dramatist and poet |
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| Beautiful display of coats of arms - above this were stained glass windows with more. |
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| So glad to have a few good signs! |
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| The River - Malliol 1861 - 1944 |
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| The Royal Palace |
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| Back down to Grotemarkt |
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| Another fountain which will be boarded up for winter soon. |
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| The tower of the City Hall seen in the distance |
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| Garden near the Library |
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| Checking the view |
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| Lookong up to the Royal Palace |
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| Definitely Dutch style rather than French architecture |
From the Palace of Justice, we walked towards the Royal Palace and back
to Grotemarkt. We decided on some refreshments before going back to our
car as we had a 2 hour journey ahead.
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| Chapel of St Madeleine |
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| Chocolate! One day... |
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| Archaeological site of Bruxella 1238! - couldn't go in but glad we found it! |
Karl drove well in very foggy conditions, with constant moisture on the windscreen and we were once again very grateful for our Tom Tom as without "her" we would have had great difficulty finding our way back to "Our Lady of Crossroads" and back to Izel. It was good to get home!
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