Belgium: Brussels and Beyond

 

Bits of whimsy such as this at Place Ste-Catherine are found all over central
Brussels. Note the fish mural in the upper left corner of this photo.

When Americans think of their perfect European vacation, I suspect few have dreams of wandering the streets of Brussels, or even think of Belgium at all.  We never thought of it on our previous trips, but when we started planning our spring 2025 trip, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam were included, along with a few weeks in familiar and unfamiliar parts of France. 

    We arrived in Brussels on a Eurostar train from France on Sunday, June 1, and stayed four nights at  Made in Catherine, a small hotel on Place Ste.-Catherine, a large plaza within an easy walk of Grand-Place, the plaza that is the heart of Brussels. Place Ste.-Catherine has fountains, restaurants and a 19th-century church. Grand-Place has towering guild houses that one associates with the Low Countries. 

     There were two highlights of our time in Brussels. One involved a very long walk across the city to the Hemicycle, the European Union Parliament building, where we had to show our passports to be allowed in for an English-language tour, which was given by a Swede, and a presentation on how the EU works.  The number of languages requiring simultaneous translation makes the working of this legislature a logistical wonder. Throughout Europe we are always amazed at how multilingual people are, but here it's taken up several notches. 

     The other highlight involved our son-in-law's cousin, who lives in Ghent. We met him in 2016 in Iran at our daughter's wedding celebration (both her husband and his cousin are Persian) and he was kind enough to serve as my personal interpreter at the many events we attended over several days. In the years since, Javad got his Ph.D. in Ghent and now works for a tech company, often traveling the world for meetings.  We took a train from Brussels to Ghent one morning and Javad, who took the day off, met us, walked and drove us all over Ghent, took us to lunch and then drove us to nearby Bruges, one of Europe's most picturesque towns, for a quick tour. He says he visits Bruges to show it to anyone visiting him. 

      In Ghent, the three of us visited Sint-Baafs (St. Bavo's Cathedral) to see the 1432 altarpiece known as "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb," thought to be the world's first major oil painting but perhaps best known as the world's most-stolen artwork. French forces took it after the French Revolution and displayed it at the Louvre until it was returned after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. In all, it's been stolen seven times, including by Germans during the First World War and again during the Second World War. One of its many panels remains missing but has been replaced by an excellent reproduction.  Admission to the cathedral is free but there's a small fee to see the altarpiece, which is dimly lit and at a distance that makes a close look impossible. The lamb, a metaphore for Jesus, has human-like eyes that were hard to discern, but the slightly campy nature of the central image could be seen. 

     We had several good meals in Belgium, including our lunch in Ghent with Javad, where I had vol-au-vent, sort of a chicken stew in a pastry shell. We had dinner our first night at Lobster House on a narrow street near Grand-Place. We had moules-frites, which translates as steamed mussels and french fries. We ordered mussels a couple of time in France and they were tiny "rope mussels" and hardly worth the effort it took to eat them. Here they were large, plump and tasty.  At Crush, just off Place Ste.-Catherine we had steak-frites and sea bream, which were excellent, but shrimp croquettes here convinced us to not order croquettes again. And it was more seafood at Bij Den Boer with mussels and sole menueire. Again first rate. Dining in Brussels is much like dining in France except that bilingual menus tend to be in French and Flemish, though English is widely spoken. 

     There was one culinary disppointment for Jane, who was a child in Queens, New York, when Belgian waffles were popularized at the 1964 World's Fair there. She found the waffles in Brussels too soft and too sweet. She said she preferred Eggos. 

   And there was the Bar Magritte, a hotel bar near Grand-Place. The Magritte theme was nice, but the drinks lists and the top-shelf ingredients would make it notable anyway. Jane particularly enjoyed an old fashioned that was topped with a quarter-inch of red wine. Our other Magritte experience was a bit less enjoyable, the Musee Magritte, where there is a lot of information about the Belgian surrealist and his life, but few of his better-known works. 

Here are some photos:

This "Mona Lisa" graces a wall on a narrow
street in central Brussels.

That "Mona Lisa" is composed of a mosaic of hundreds of photos of people peering through a card. 

Brussels seems to have a city-wide fascination
with cartoons. There's even a walking tour
devoted to comic murals. The Smurfs
appeared on the ceiling of a parking entrance.

Belgium's own Tintin and the Captain dash
eternally down a fire escape.

The Mannekin Pis (Little Man Pisssing) has been
a fixture in Brussels since the mid-15th century.
What we see here is a replica that was installed
in 1965 when the original was moved to a museum.

A restaurant near the Mannekin Pis
advises Drink, Eat, Piss.

Grand Place is lined with Baroque guildhalls.

The adornments on one of the guildhalls.

Brussel's city hall.

A very ornate plaque celebrates Brussel's very ornate architecture.

The European Union may well be the planet's last bastion of democracy. This
is a plaza outside the Hemicycle in Brussels, seat of the European parliament.

The Hemicycle has translators so that someone speaking in
any one of the EU's 24 official languages is simultaneously
translated into the other 23 languages.

A plaque honoring Russian dissident Alexei Nalvalny
was installed at the Hemicycle before his 2024 death
at the hands of his Russian jailers.

A birdcage is suspended over one of 
Brussel's many dining streets.

The Galeries Royale St. Hubert spans several
blocks in central Brussels and is home to a 
variety of shops and restaurants. It's a particularly
good place to shop for chocolates.

Place Ste.-Catherine offers a break from the bustle of nearby Grand Place.

We stayed Made in Catherine, a restaurant and hotel
on Place Ste.-Catherine.

"The Human Condition" is a 1962 work by 
Rene Magritte, one of many works at
Musee Magritte.

"Cigar-fish" (undated) is pencil on paper.

Bruges, about an hour from Brussels, draws hordes of tourists.

A canal boat ride in Bruges.

One of the first things we saw when leaving the train
station after arriving in Ghent was this bike lot.

Our friend Javad showed Jane and me around Ghent and Bruges, two of Belgium's 
most charming towns.

Ghent has its share of magnificent buildings.

"The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" at the Ghent cathedral was begun in the 1420s by
Hubert van Eyck and completed by his brother, Jan van Eyck. It is often referred to as
the first important oil painting and marks the transition from medieval to renaissance art.

The Bar Magritte is in the Hotel Amigo near the Grand Place.

A Magritte-like hat is part of the decor at the Bar 
Magritte. On the left, an old fashioned topped with
a layer of red wine. The other drink is a G&T.