He’d sent his soon-to-be fiancee on a scavenger hunt about town, featuring many of the places that are significant to them. The trip culminated with a walk full of dozens of people they knew holding posters about her and him and them. (We went for comic relief with our posters.) At the end of that tunnel there he was with a ring and a speech and a poster of his own.
And today it was a lovely little ceremony. Saw some folks we don’t get to see as often as we should. Had a little finger food at the reception and hung out with our pal Kim:
And then we went out for barbecue. Not a bad way to spend your evening.
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.
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.
This is in the courtyard of the Brussels Town Hall. The courtyard was completed in 1712. The oldest part of the town hall was completed in 1420. Everything here is older than anything we can touch at home.
In 1830, a provisional government was formed at the town hall during the Third French Revolution. That brought about a separation of the Southern Netherlands from the Northern Netherlands and somewhere in the unrest of that part of the 19th century Europe Belgium emerged as an independent nation.
We spent the day without big plans or timetables. We caught a train in, got a phone set up, had lunch and walked around the Grand Place, and saw the beautiful buildings there, like these next four shots:
I stood close to the center of Grand Place and shot this interactive image. Click in the picture and scroll around: left, right up and down.
Here’s a view back of the steeple in the square as we walked down a small side street looking for some place to eat dinner:
This is something like a mall. There are plenty of storefronts on the ground level. I couldn’t say what was upstairs. These were open on both sides, but that’s a closed roof, though it feels very airy, with all of those beautiful lines. It really changed the weather. Were you too warm or cold or getting rained on? Duck in here:
A basic pastoral scene on our train ride back to our friends’ place:
