Belgium


8
Jul 15

Daydreaming of Belgium

(Still more extra stuff from Brussels.)

There we were, sitting outside the beautiful St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral.

People have been worshipping perhaps as far back as the ninth century. This building went up between the 13th and 16th centuries. The stained glass windows and confessionals are that old. Just think of it. That place was old when the U.S. was new.

Don’t worry. We went inside. I produced a little video. You can see it here.


5
Jul 15

The first thing I saw in Brussels

(An extra memory from our time in Belgium.)

When we got off the train in Brussels, this just down from the station.

It seemed an aggressive, passive-aggressive sign. We ate elsewhere that day, but cake seemed the better of the ideas. Very hip, hipster-ish place.


23
Jun 15

The more I think about it …

(Holdover thoughts from our time in Belgium.)

I want a waffle.

Perhaps the biggest disappoint of visiting Brussels — aside from not meeting Jean Claude Van Damme — was that you couldn’t find a waffle magnet. We do the complete tourist thing with the magnets, yes, and our fridge is awesome.

I’d just want a waffle magnet that looks like this:

Of course I’d probably walk by it every day and do that, so maybe it is a good thing.


30
May 15

Parc de Mariemont

“What do you want to do today?”

“As little as possible.”

Weary is a good word. And so we spent the afternoon at the Parc de Mariemont is a former royal estate and hunting park created in the 16th century. The royal home is long gone, but today it is a public park and on the grounds there is a museum, Musée royal de Mariemont. There are also ducks and geese.

And this one charged me. What do you do when a goose gets aggressive?

I chose to stand still. He got close and then got bored.

There are also some ancient greenhouses on the grounds. And plenty of beautiful flowers:

One more fowl:

A boy and his father:

Here’s a bell just sitting in the park. No signs, but the slab notes the dates 1698 and 1896. So one presumes it was in action for 200 years.

Probably it was in a church or chapel:

Our gracious host:

He’s just the cutest. But not as cute as my traveling companion:


29
May 15

Waffles, cathedrals, historic tours

Back into Brussels, where we entertained ourselves, ate terribly, had a terrific tour and an all-around lovely day. Brussels is a place you could probably absorb in two or three serious days of trekking. More if you need to hit the bars for the famous Belgian beer. We stuck with the chocolate and the waffles. My word, the waffles.

You should never shoot video of yourself eating, even in time lapse.

This is the exterior of the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral.

Worship here is thought to date back to the ninth century. The current structure was built between the 13th and 16th centuries. The stained glass windows and confessionals go back that far. The pulpit was added in the 17th century and the carillon was installed in 1975. Here’s an interior shot:

During 20th century restorations the remains of a Romanesque church and a Romanesque crypt were discovered.

Here are some of the interior highlights:

We had great chocolate today. And a terrific tour. There’s a four-hour walking tour that begins in the Great Place, where we spent yesterday afternoon. A young Englishman who has changed his citizenship to Belgium gave a terrific tour. We learned about the history of every building in the Great Place — except the Starbucks — how all of this started because of rivers and commerce and that the nation is thoroughly multicultural and full of self-deprecating humor. We talked about the EU, the Congo and the landed gentry of the place.

Here, for example, is the Place Royale, or Koningsplein, near the center of town. This is the second palace construction on the site, after an 18th century fire. In 1831, the coronation of King Leopold I, Belgium’s first king, was held here. There are plans to start a restoration of the facilities in the next few years.

The statue is of Godfrey of Bouillon, an 11th century Frankish knight, and most notably one of the leaders of the first Crusade, in 1096, and briefly became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Godfrey’s likeness was installed in 1848, replacing the statue of Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine that was melted down for the metal during the French Revolution.

This is the Mont des Arts. Once a heavily populated area, King Leopold II bought up the land and had the buildings destroyed. Eventually, it became a temporary garden, and since the 1950s some of the land has been used for the Royal Library of Belgium and the Congress Palace. The congressional fountains are beneath you in the foreground. In the distance you can see the spire of city hall and the Grand Place.

It was here we heard the best story of the day. In the early stages of World War I Germany was trying to outflank France. They wanted to go through Belgium, a small and then still very young country. King Albert, who ruled neutral Belgium, said “I rule a nation, not a road.”

The Germans came in, the Belgians resisted. They didn’t last long, of course, but the violation of their neutrality brought the English into the fray. Albert commanded his army. His son Prince Leopold fought in the ranks and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, worked as a front line nurse. The army, about 10 percent the size of the Germans, was pushed back to the coast. They resisted for about a month, key weeks for France and the UK in the early going of the war. Belgium would be occupied by the Germans throughout the war. Opening the dikes created a flood plain and that was all that stood between the German forces and the tiny Belgian army.

How can you not love Belgians after a story like that?

Almost immediately after our tour it started raining. Hard. So we ducked into a Vietnamese restaurant. It was our only real meal of the day. It was delicious. After that we had another waffle. So that was two-and-a-half on the day. But, hey, we didn’t have any fries.

We hung out with Sydney today:

And I want to know why no gift shop in Belgium sells waffle magnets. This seems an oversight.