Authors’s note: This post covers the day of July 14th. I wrote it while doing laundry on July 17th.
Boy, the 14th was a hell of a day.
We got up a little late, around 10. It was raining a bit, so we walked to the gallery to eat at a café there under the overhang. I had a huge breakfast of an omelette, a croissant, coffee, and orange juice. That big meal turned out to be a great decision. I think we were mostly among tourists at this café. There was English being spoken next to us, as well as Spanish. But there seemed to be a couple locals as well.
After breakfast we walked through Grande Place for the first time. It’s quite impressive. You can see the spire of one of the buildings reaching above the skyline as you walk towards it, but there is no grand entrance to the square, just a bunch of alleys cluttered with waffle shops, chocolate shops, lace stores, collectible beer stores, and tourist knick-knacks. So you don’t see it coming until you emerge from one of those alleyways onto the square itself. And suddenly the ornate facades are right in front of you in all their detailed glory. Every square inch of every building around you is decorated is some kind of sculpture, design, or gold leaf accent.
After seeing Grande Place, we walked down to see the Mannekin Pis. The stretch of road between the two holds even more tourist shops and lace and waffles and chocolate. We came around the corner to get our first view of this bafflingly famous statue, and what do we see, but the boy is dressed up in black pants, blue and white striped shirt, red scarf, black beret, and holding a baguette under his right arm! A passing tour guide explained to us that it was Bastille Day, so the Belgians had dressed their little town mascot in honor of the people who gave them one of their many languages.
Overall, the statue is relatively unimpressive. It’s a boy peeing, with a smile on his face. The statue is only 2 feet tall, and the crowds are pretty thick. Maybe this little boy is the first case of being famous just for being famous? You know, paving the way for the Ryan Seacrests of the world. I guess its just something you have to see in Brussels, and then you move on. There are better ways to spend your time.
So, with those two Brussels landmarks out of the way, we really only had one mandatory one left, and that was the Atomium. We stopped off at the hotel room to recharge and figure out how we were going to get there. I had the Atomium brochure that recommended taking the Metro line 1 to line 6, and you’re there. Smith said, “No, we’ll walk it. And we’ll go through the park on the way”. And I failed to investigate further. I agreed, and so the long walk of Brussels 2012 began. I figured that if any sane person wanted to walk it, it couldn’t be more than a mile or 2 at the most. After 30 minutes and while walking next to the industrial park on the Brussels canal, I realized that we were nowhere near the Atomium, and nowhere near this park that Smith had spoken of, and that this was about to get a whole lot worse before it got better. We did see a small park and a church along the way, but I’m pretty sure we would have seen those had we taken the sightseeing bus that passed us again and again on our trek. An hour and 15 minutes later, we caught sight of the Atomium. But the thing is so big, it was another 15 minutes until we were actually there.
The tour there was interesting. A mixture of the history of Expo ’58 and the creation of the building, and their temporary exhibit on the increasing competition for water in the world. The best part about the building is of course seeing it, seeing the view from the top of it, oh, and the light show tunnel.
We took the metro back from the Atomium, and at this point it was almost 5. And we’d had nothing to eat since breakfast. That’s why that big breakfast turned out to be key. For dinner we went to a cellar restaurant on the Grande Place that Frommer’s had recommended. It was good. We got herring filets in cream with apple and onion slices as an appetizer. Then I had a stoempe, which is a mashed potato and vegetable mixture (my guess is that it includes carrot and parsnip in addition to the potatoes) with a Flemish beef and onion stew on the side. It was amazing, really hearty, just what I needed.
Recharged from dinner, we headed off to see the European parliament before it got dark. We passed some more amazing buildings, including the Museum of Fine Art and the Royal Palace. We walked through a park that had a large gazebo where people were waltzing and tangoing (is that a word).
The European parliament was deathly silent. It makes sense that on a Saturday of a week that it’s not in session would be quiet, but I joked that we were hearing the sound of problems NOT being solved.
We wandered through the complex and into the park just beyond it. I thought it was pretty cool to see kids playing basketball in the shadow of the European Parliament building, just like I’ve always thought it would be cool to play in a DC sports league so I could play while in sight of the Capitol.
On the other side of the park we went to Place Jourdanplein to get fries from the place most recommended. They were pretty awesome. Double fried in some kind of fat or lard, no junk vegetable oil here, and served with your choice of sauce and a little tiny fork.
After those fries we were insanely thirsty, so we grabbed a beer from a café there on Place Jourdanplein before heading back. That was really nice. To relax with a full stomach, a cold beer, in a part of town that was authentically Belgian, a few tourists around, but really just the ones that came for the fries. A couple sitting next to us saying hi to a passing woman on the street, a little boy too young for a real bike using his feet for balance and propulsion on a bike with no pedals, the waiter and a patron arguing over the counting out a big pile of change to pay for his drinks, a group of young teenagers doing stepovers and backheels with a soccer ball as they pass before meeting another group and greeting each other with a mixture of handshakes, hugs, and fist bumps, an accordion player setting up and coercing most of the patrons to chip in a coin or two (I was no exception). It was truly enjoyable to take in all of this.
The sun was just beginning to set, so around 9, when we started back. Walked back through the old buildings and the park, where even more people were dancing now. Then back to Grande Place to eat waffles, mine with strawberries and chocolate, Smith’s without the fruit.
But we still weren’t done. We still hadn’t had any beers. So, we went to A La Becasse, a cellar bar Smith had found a recommendation for. It was a very cool, old space. The waiter wore a full on body apron that looked like a tunic that a Middle Ages knight would wear. We had three beers each. We started with a St. Feullien. Then Smith had the white lambic, while I had their house specialty, which was a Doux Lambic. It is a sour ale, which is not my favorite, but it has a distinct apple juice flavor to it. After that, Smith had a Chimay, and I had a Leffe. I’m struggling to remember what varieties of those beers we had, but I do know that the I was struggling to stay awake. The only reason I got the last 2 beers was because my brain kept telling me, “You may never be back in Brussels, you have to experience as much as possible.”
Finally, we walked back through Grande Place to see it at night.
So, a little after midnight, we returned to our hotel, and crashed. Hard.
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