Our Belgium Adventure: Day Four

We woke up this morning, a bit sad that it was our last day in Belgium, but there wasn't any time to think about that, since we still had one more city to see before we left! Vera and Jan prepared us for our journey with another lovely breakfast, this time homemade wholegrain and current buns with delicious cheese on top (and even gave us an extra bun to take as a snack for later),

after which we packed up and got ready to go. Before we left, I had to take a photo of a section of Vera and Jan's attic which I loved--like a personal travel bookshop, it's an entire shelf of maps, books, and research on cities and countries that Jan and Vera have either been to or hope to go to:
Bob and I are doing our best to accumulate our own shelf, but so far Jan and Vera are winning. :-) At the station, we said our goodbyes and thanked them for all they did to make our visit to Antwerpen so wonderful. The fifty-minute train ride to Brussels flew by and we were quite amazed to find ourselves in our third city in four days (not our usual mode of travelling, but one we quite enjoyed). We stored our bag at the same station from which our Eurostar was departing in ten hours and set off for our day in Brussels! The subway and tram stations were beautifully decorated with art (not a billboard in sight), which made the city seem very civilized and creative right from the start: This food shop (appropriately located on rue de beurre: Butter Street!) was on my list of places to spend €, but after a thorough window-browse,
we didn't manage to make it back in time to buy some treats to take home. (I had planned to buy a few things just before we left, since it was very warm--maybe 22'C and warmer in the sun--too warm to be carrying food around all day.) Oh well, maybe next time! We soon found ourselves in the Grand Place, the centre of old Brussels and an inspiring sight. Although we missed having Jan's wealth of information, I did my best with my guidebook and we enjoyed learning about the history of each of the buildings in the square, including former guildhalls (again decorated with statues symbolizing each guild's function) and the town hall, in front of which a flower market is held daily.
Some of the former guildhouses are now the homes of exclusive restaurants like this one on the right,
the buildings on the square were incredibly ornate,
and this particular building, originally the home of the Bakers' Guild, currently houses the oldest café in the city.
We walked around the square a few times, taking in the details and enjoying the busy weekend atmosphere
before beginning to wander through some of the nearby areas, beginning with Ste Catherine and St Géry, two up-and-coming areas that had a seemingly endless supply of charming shops and sidewalk cafés. We almost sat down at a café for a snack, but were glad we didn't when we came across this place, where we ordered this dish without even knowing what it was, just because everyone seemed to be getting it and it smelled delicious (I still don't know what it was--some sort of whitefish):
We also enjoyed this plate of delicately grilled tuna, seasoned just right.
Did we have this meal at a fancy, white-tableclothed restaurant? No! We ate standing up, at the counter of this fishmonger/ impromptu restaurant (that's Bob at the far left):
We seemed to be the only tourists at this very crowded spot, which did a brisk business in about a dozen dishes (each looking more incredible than the last) and white wine, and we wished we had bigger appetites so that we could try more of the extremely fresh, reasonably priced seafood, but we walked away after two plates. Here's the view that accompanied our meal: After lunch, we continued walked around, going in and out of shops and just exploring. Some intersections had signs on the pavement warning pedestrians to look in particular directions for cars, and I really liked their cute design. Here's one telling us to look both ways!
As usual, we enjoyed seeing the city's animals
and along a similar theme, we thought this restaurant's name ("And who is going to walk the dog?") was very funny. By now, we had walked to the Place du Grand Sablon, an area simply buzzing with cafés, restaurants, and food shops. We returned later in the day to have dinner at one of the tables on this street
and to buy chocolates from this shop,
but for now, we just had a peek at the weekend antiques market in the square
and sat for a while in the very pretty Place du Petit Sablon
which is surrounded by bronze statues representing various guilds.
More cobbled streets; more cute dogs--my kind of sightseeing-- but by now the day was getting a bit too warm and we decided to head indoors for a while, to the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts: a museum of ancient art and a museum of modern art. Since we only had an hour before the museums closed, we decided to stick to the modern art so we wouldn't have to rush. The museum's collection of mostly Belgian, 19th- and 20- century art was very interesting and we were glad we could visit at least one large art museum during our short trip. Some highlights of the collection, all by Belgian artists unless I've noted otherwise, were: Guillaume Vogels,
Hippolyte Boulenger,
French Pierre Bonnard (one of my usual favourites),
Prosper De Troyer,
Jean Brusselmans,
German Otto Dix,
Victor Servranckx,
German Heinrich Campendonk,
Belarusian Marc Chagall,
René Magritte,
Catalan Joan Miró,
German Max Ernst,

Marcel Broodthaers,

and Italian Michelangelo Pistoletto's. (We added ourselves to his Green Curtain.)
Bob loved the museum's elevator
and after browsing in the giftshop and bookshop, we noticed the beauty of the building (formerly life-insurance offices) itself:


This elevator led the way to a very exclusive brasserie within the museum:
Back on the slightly cooler streets, this bird struck a cute pose
as we marvelled at the Art Nouveau Old England building, formerly a department store and now the Musical Instrument Museum:

We walked around the Mont des Arts area, enjoying the view over the manicured greenspace,
as well as the nearby intricate clock, with important people representing each hour (alas, with two missing figures):
From here our wandering became even more random, and we stumbled upon some beautiful covered arcades,
one of which contained this amusing sentiment:
Apparently, you can't visit Brussels without seeing Manneken Pis, the fountain of the peeing boy (the symbol of Brussels), and so we did just that:

(As far as tourist clichés go though, I would have much rather seen the Atomium, but we didn't have time to head that far out from the centre of town during our whirlwind visit.) Another aspect of Brussels that would be interesting to see more of on another visit is its collection of outdoor comic-strip murals. Appearing along various routes (apparently spread over six kilometres) in the city, we happened across several on our journeys today,
including this one that started it all in 1991. Located in the gay area of Brussels, it's up to you to decide just who is walking arm-in-arm with whom. According to my Lonely Planet guidebook, "Gay establishments used the mural to promote the quarter until 1999 when the mural was repainted and the black-haired figure was given a more feminine hairstyle, earrings and (slightly) bigger breasts." I suppose looking at it again with that information, I can see how the left figure could possibly be seen as a woman, but when I took the photo, I instantly assumed it was two men.
The murals really liven up the streets and following the entire route to see them all would make for a fun walk.

But there wasn't time for that today, since it was already close to 6:00 P.M. and we had to be back at the train station in less than two hours, so, as I've already mentioned, we headed back to the Grand Sablon for some delicious salads and some chocolate shopping. It turned out that our server was also a violin-maker and between serving tables, he sat down to work at one of the inside tables:
After choosing our chocolates at Pierre Marcolini, we realized we were a bit more rushed that we would have liked, and decided to catch a bus back to the train station. As in London and Paris, the bus stops in Brussels are extremely well-equipped with all the information a tourist (or a local) could need for convenient bus travel,
something that Vancouver sorely lacks. The bus showed up, exactly at the time that the schedule promised, and we made it to the station just in time to get on our Eurostar back to London. A few hours later we were home again, with our 680-photo camera card showing just one remaining photo, a box of chocolates to grace the living room table, and a strong desire to return to Belgium again one day.