Een Dag in Brussels (A Day in Brussels)

A day trip to Brussels on November 1 was a convenient way to relax for the weekend and see a small part of Belgium. I only planned to stay for one day because 1.) the high speed train could get me from Paris to Brussels in one hour and 20 minutes, thus mitigating the need to stay in a hotel in order to get an early start to the day, and 2.) Brussels doesn't have any sites that are high on my to-see list (this is further corroborated by my colleagues and by travel blogs saying that Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges and Liege are all more interesting Belgian cities than the capital). However, Brussels is still an interesting city with its own charms.

My plan was to do some sightseeing, attend the Anderlecht football match and fill up on Belgian waffles. On the sightseeing front, one of Brussels' better known tourist traps is the Mannekin-Pis, a small statue of a boy urinating (and yes, there is water spraying into a fountain). This statue annoys the hell out of North American tourists who are expecting something more from one of Brussels' most famous landmarks, but it appears to be more of a fun side-trip for Asian and Eastern European tourists. Brussels also has a Jeanneke-Pis (a girl squatting to urinate in a fountain) and a Zinneke-Pis (a dog lifting its leg towards a post, but this is not a water fountain). I decided to make it a scavenger hunt to find all three statues (fortunately they are all within a few blocks of one another). I haven't done any research on the idea behind these three statues, but I was left with the impression that Brussels has some sort of connection with public urination, which factors into the last activity of my trip (more on that at the end of my post).



From left to right: Jeanneke-Pis, Mannekin-Pis, and Zinneke-Pis. There's a lot of pissing going on in Brussels.

November 1 is a public holiday in Belgium (Toussaint / All Saints' Day), so the city seemed eerily quiet during the morning and most of the afternoon, but maybe all Saturdays are like this. Vehicle and pedestrian traffic was very light.

At the center of Brussels' historic district is the Grand-Place, which is a beautiful city square surrounded by several historic buildings. If you plan to visit Brussels, this should be at the top of your list (although you should go during August of an even-numbered year, when they display a flower carpet of one million begonias).

On the south side of the Grand-Place is the Hôtel de Ville, the city's Town Hall. There are hundreds of intricate sculptures along the outer walls.

On the north side of the Grand-Place is the Museum of the City of Brussels.

After seeing five art museums in Paris (details to follow in future posts) and the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, I was weary of viewing more art work and so I looked to see something different but unique to Brussels. Belgium happens to be the home of a lot of comic strips, many of which have attained international notoriety, and the city fittingly had the Belgian Comic Strip Center. Both Tintin and the Smurfs featured prominently in the exhibits.

Various works from the Belgian Comic Strip Center. The top two pictures are from a fun comic strip called Boerke. The bottom left picture is a historical comic strip depicting the Napoleonic Wars. The bottom right picture is an artistic modern piece depicting Alice in Wonderland in a New York setting. Click on the picture to see more closely.

The Smurfs originated in Belgium as Les Schtroumpfs. Pictured above is a puzzle drawing. The first challenge is to find the six objects that are not related to music; the second challenge is to find the two smurfs that are identical to one another. The answers are at the end of the post.

Before leaving the city center, I took some time to relax in the Botanical Garden of Brussels.

Visiting Brussels provided the opportunity to see RSC Anderlecht, the top team in Belgium (both last year's champion and this year's leader in the Jupiler Pro League). They were playing against Lokeren, who happen to be having a good season so far.

Constant Vanden Stock Stadium during the match between RSC Anderlecht and Lokeren. The stadium is what I would call normal size, fitting 28,063 people, and was at around 90%-95% capacity during the game.

The game ended in a 1-1 draw. The home supporters were vocal with jeering and whistling whenever a player fell down too easily or when the referee made a questionable call, but otherwise they were quiet, such that the Lokeren supporters made much more noise throughout the match (although I was sitting closer to the visiting fans' section which may have made them seem much louder).

The last part of the trip that I had planned was to see the Atomium and Mini-Europe after the football match. The problem was that the football stadium was west of the city while the Atomium/Mini-Europe were northeast, and the subway/tram ride out to the latter was much longer than I expected. By the time I reached the Atomium, it was nearing sunset. It was certainly too dark to see Mini-Europe so I cancelled the last bit of my visit.

The Atomium, just before and just after sunset.

I had a good share of Belgian waffles and Juliper beer throughout the day, but the beer passed through me very quickly. While the train station washroom charges 50 cents per use, there happened to be a public urinal just outside the station. So Brussels provided me with the opportunity to urinate in public just like Mannekin, Jeanneke and Zinneke (although to be fair, several other European cities have public urinals). The stalls are four-sided and I was able to get the spot facing away from the street.

Liekens public urinal. My apologies for not photographing a selfie but I had my hands full when I used this.

That was Brussels in a day. The city became livelier and more crowded during the evening, which gave me the impression that Belgians are night owls. And for those of you trying to solve the Smurf puzzle:

• The answer to the first question is the mirror of Vanity Smurf, the hammer of Handy Smurf, the flask of water, the wrench, the flower pot and the smurf coming out of the sousaphone (tuba). Since the smurf coming out of the sousaphone has a party favour which can make some noise, I actually thought the smurf standing between the curtains and the smurf napping in front of the drums were less relevant to music than the smurf in the sousaphone.
• The answer to the second question is the smurf playing the flute behind the pianist and the smurf playing the flute behind the cellist. I thought that two of the smurfs in the choir at the front also looked identical but they are holding different pieces of sheet music so I guess that makes them different enough.

I've been getting some questions from readers asking more about daily life in Paris. I intend on providing more insights on this after I have finished a few other trips and subsequent posts.