Brussels

I had a long day trying to get to Brussels. It was filled with late trains, absent trains, missed trains, wrong stops; it was a long day. I got to Brussels about four hours later than planned, it was already dark so I checked into my hostel and got some dinner from a food stand right outside of the hostel but didn’t do anything more than that. There was a local Belgian man in my room and we talked for a while and he decided he would like to tag along with me to see some of the main sites the next morning.

Really he was more of a tour guide. He knew so much about the city, the history of Belgium, architecture, art, he was pretty amazing. He had lived through the World War Two and remembered when the Nazis came and occupied the country and when Belgium was liberated by the Americans.

He took me first to the town hall, built in gorgeous high-gothic style. The whole square was edged by beautiful buildings that had all at one time belonged to the cities guilds, when craftsmen banded together to control their practices. Then we went to the Cathedral and the attached museum, which occupied an old side chapel.

We walked through Brussels park, a large park on one side of which sits the Belgium Parliament and on the opposing side sits the Royal Palace, took some pictures, learned some history. There is a monument in the park commemorating the place where a Russian tsar threw up from drinking too much when on a visit to Belgium. How noble.  

Anyway we walked around much of downtown Brussels, saw a statue of the first king of Jerusalem Godfroid of Belgium.  We walked through the free exhibitions of a few museums and ended in the Royal Library where we had lunch in a little restaurant there. After we had finished lunch my tour guide had to leave to go attend to some business he had in the city so we said goodbye and parted ways. I was still a bit hungry and Belgium is famous for their French fries, though they abhor that name because they take credit for the invention of the sliced and fried potato, so I set about finding some. It is not hard, they have the most sublime cultural tradition of French fry stands and stores dedicated solely to this glorious cuisine which dot the city. So I got some fries to go on my way back to the hostel to regroup and relax for a bit. I spent some time in the next-door church in prayer and when I was just about to leave I learned Mass was about to start so I stayed for an evening Mass.

The next day I took the tram across the city to see the Atomium. It is the building Brussels is known for. It was constructed in the 50’s for the World Fair and was meant to be symbolic of the “Atomic Age” and the movement pushing the peaceful use of atomic energy. It is a wild building, very cool but very strange. The tour starts with a elevator ride to the very top of the building for a 360 panorama of the city and surrounding countryside. Once I soaked in the view the tour continued with the history and construction of the building followed by some strange exhibit full of orange furniture which I paid little attention to. Afterwards I grabbed a Belgium waffle from a little food truck sitting outside and then got on the tram back to the city. I returned to my hostel to grab my bag and I was on my way to Amsterdam.