OT: Brussels, Friday
Rik Shepherd
Despite alarms-phones, and good intentions, and cunningly laid plans we
oversleep just in time for a late start, as you do. We walk over a couple of
blocks to the Pain Quoditient, noticing on the way that the bright red
street lighting of the night before was achieved by wrapping the ordinary
lamps in what appear to be giant red sweet wrappers. At the Pain Quod, Carol
has a pain aux raisin and a croissant, and I have a pain au chocolat and
pain a l'ancienne, which turns out to be half an extremely chrunchy baguette
which almost dislocates my jaw. Oddly enough, every time I look up, a small
boy across the table is staring at me.
Finally I win in the age-old battle between man and ancient baguette, and we
leave. We jump aboard the underground Pre-metro tram at Bourse, change to
the real Metro at Broukere, and speed up to Schuman. We alight in the heart
of the EU area, have a quick look at the outside of some of the EU buildings
which are pretty dull in comparison to the rest of the city, and walk
through the Parc de Cinquintenaire (which, weirdly, is much smaller in real
life than on a map).
Pretty soon we're outside the Royal Museum of Art and History, wondering why
they've got a small boxcar at the top of their front stairs. Closer
inspection reveals it's not unconnected to an exhibition about the
Trans-Siberian Railway. Round the corner, we find the real entrance to the
museum, scamper in, and purchase tickets for the exhibition we're interested
in.
Clutching our tickets and our free audio guides we wander into the 'Art
Nouveau & Design 1830-1958' exhibition. The dates mean the period covered
runs from the invention of Belguim to the 1958 Exposition, which is
interesting as Art Nouveau as such seems to have started in the 1880s or
1890s, and mutated into Deco after the Great War, which leaves a certain
amount of not-Art-Nouveau either end of the exhibition. And the exhibition
is mainly furniture, with some ceramics and glass; this is a shame as it
shows you what Horta put into his buildings, but not the buildings
themselves. Still it's a good exhibition, showing 'modern' (ie Gothic
Revival) furniture before Art Nouveau, several different strands of AN that
were displayed in the same Exposition, a bit of Deco, and some frankly
unfortunate post-war pieces. The last suffered greatly from the design
running ahead of technology; a lot of it absolutely required either
effective spray painting or plastic surfaces, and instead ended up with a
blotchy hand painted job. Interesting fact: Belgian Art Nouveau furniture
designers were selling self-assembly furniture for the working classes,
complete with stencils to decorate with, before the Great War.
Leaving the exhibition, Carol goes outside for a nicotine fix, while I
wander into part of the main collection, a room full of models of carts and
coaches, and real sledges. Then we find there's a cafe, order soup of the
day (which changes variety between ordering and consuming, but is rather
tasty) and leave.
We decide to visit the Trans-Siberian Railway exhibition round the corner,
but are warned that, though we *can* go in, there's not enough time before
closing to really see it, so we go for a wander in the Jubelpark (as I can't
pronounce or spell Cinquinentaire I've decided to go Dutch again). It's
obviously a popular place to walk dogs, especially if you want to have a
deep talk with a significant other whilst ignoring your dog. This might
explain why several dogs find us, dogless, interesting, in particular a
small black energetic one who is slightly hampered by carrying a metal dog
bowl in his mouth. This works fine until he drops it right side up and can't
grab it again. More permamently, there's Horta's Pavilion, built to hold a
set of relief sculptures so offensive to Belgian society that they were
closed after two days. The pavilion looks more like a mausoleum than
anything as frivolous or enjoyable as a pavilion to me. Next to it is
Horta's Grand Mosque which has big windows to tempt you with glimpses of the
wonders within, and several gates to thwart you. Closer to the main gates is
a curious monument to the incorporation of the Congo into the Belgian
empire; a little display panel notes that History has not smiled on
Belgium's behaviour in the Congo. The monument heavily features heroic
Belgians sacrificing themselves for each other, topped with the Congo (a
strong, naked, bowing black woman) being greeted into Civilization by
Belgium (a clothed, seated, white woman). Presumably they didn't get round
to the bit where Belgium decided that rubber production in the Congo was
linked to the number of Congolese killed, and paid killers by the ear.
Then it's back to the metro at Schuman, and we're whisked off to St
Catherine's. We nip out to buy chocolate and Cecemel to take home,
accidentally buying some decorative glasswork and another bottle from the
Finnish alcohol woman, as you do.
After a shortish rest, we set out to eat. Now, reading the Rough Guide, we
found an interesting sounding restaurant called the Chat Peché, which we
translate as the 'Fishing Cat', which is close enough to remind us of an
Angie Palmer track 'Down the Street of the Cat Who Fished' (which has a
verse in French as well), so we decide to go eat there. The fact that we
should also get to use a big lift to avoid walking down a hill is probably
the decider.
So, we battle through the teeming throngs of Christmas market goers, take
the 1a tram to Arts-Loi, change to the number 2 tram, and get out at Louisa.
This is apparently the most fashionable shopping street of the city, but you
wouldn't guess that in the dark. We turn off the main street, and walk out
towards the Palais de Justice, which is extremely dark and forbidding at
night. Next to it there's a parapet; looking over, we see the lights of the
Lower Town scattered beneath us. It'd be a really good view by day, and it's
still pretty good by night. There's also an illuminated walkway sticking out
and connecting to a tall white gantry. We deduce that this is the lift, and
scamper off to use it. We've just realised we can't actually see a button to
press, when someone comes up in the lift. Apparently she's waiting for her
partner/husband/date, and is amusing herself going up and down in the lift.
At the bottom, we scamper through narrow streets, looking for our
restaurant. We find the street. We find a restaurant which looks like it's
called 'Soup' (hurrah, cries Carol) but turns out to be called 'Soul'. We
notice we're running out of street, and start checking numbers. The Chat
Peché is at number 20. So is Soul. The cat no longer fishes. We examine the
menu of Soul. While the restaurant looks like it's full of happy people, the
menu claims that they use no gluten, no diary products, no sugar, and no
fat. We decide that there are probably other places to eat in the area.
After a couple of turns, we find ourselves in the Grand Sablon, a swanky
square below a large church. We fail to find anywhere we want to eat all the
way up one side of the square, cross the road at the top (which means we're
now on the same level as the top of the lift) and find that the Petit Sablon
park is surrounded by railings and locked gates after dark, but is
illuminated. There's a lot of statues atop pillars around the railings, and,
oddly, a plinth inside seems to be lit up from the inside. There're statues
of a couple of people who got executed for something on top of the plinth.
Not finding any suitable eating place, we walk back down the other side of
the Petit Sablon, back into the Grand Sablon. This all goes to show that you
should never choose a restaurant just because its name is a bit like a song
you like. Or, if you do, you should check that it actually exists before
trekking across town to go to it.
At the bottom of a street off the Grad Sablon we see a bar/restaurant packed
with people who look like they're happy. It looks crowded, but they have
space for us. Carol has white onion soup and carbonard; I have tomato soup
and a cheese omelette. I try a Scotch Gordon beer because the idea of a
Belgian beer in a tartan label is funny, and Carol risks a Kwak because of
the bizarre rack thing you drink it with.
Then we walk down through town, into the Grand Place just in time to see the
end of some sort of display which involves using the Hotel de Ville (town
hall, not a real hotel) as a screen for a pink elephant and two penguins.
Obviously we've missed something.
And so to fold-out bed sofa.
Jenni
RikSh...@orangemonkeySCAMPER.fsnet.co.uk wrote on 12/18/05 7:45 PM:
> Friday
>
> Despite alarms-phones, and good intentions, and cunningly laid plans we
> oversleep just in time for a late start, as you do. We walk over a couple of
> blocks to the Pain Quoditient, noticing on the way that the bright red
> street lighting of the night before was achieved by wrapping the ordinary
> lamps in what appear to be giant red sweet wrappers. At the Pain Quod, Carol
> has a pain aux raisin and a croissant, and I have a pain au chocolat and
> pain a l'ancienne, which turns out to be half an extremely chrunchy baguette
> which almost dislocates my jaw. >>
In other words, yesterday's bread. *g*
--
Jenni (glad to see a travelogue again!) :-)
"Once again, tithing is ten percent off the top - that's gross income, not
net. Please, people, don't force us to audit."
-- Rev. Lovejoy, "The Simpsons"
Rik Shepherd
>
> In other words, yesterday's bread. *g*
Or possibly made in a medieval manner to explain why medieval skeletons have
such ground down teeth :)
> Jenni (glad to see a travelogue again!) :-)
You know, I never did finish the Swedish trip off...
Jenni
RikSh...@orangemonkeySCAMPER.fsnet.co.uk wrote on 12/24/05 6:21 PM:
> Jenni wrote
>>
>> In other words, yesterday's bread. *g*
>
> Or possibly made in a medieval manner to explain why medieval skeletons have
> such ground down teeth :)>>
Or possibly, yes.
>
>> Jenni (glad to see a travelogue again!) :-)
>
> You know, I never did finish the Swedish trip off...
>
>
You didn't, did you?!
--
Jenni :-)
"It's the Rapture! Quick, get Bart out of the house before God sees
him!"
--"The Simpsons"