Bruxelles/Brussel, a true international city

06 - 09 July

I arrived in Bruxelles mid-afternoon, with a sudden transition from the Flemish-speaking to the French-speaking (mainly) part of Belgium. It's a bit strange being in such a multi-lingual country - all the politicians, the king, and many of the residents speak at least some of the other language to their natural one, and of course many of them speak very good English too. After speaking to Els' Mexican friends in the morning in Spanish, I managed to be using words in four different languages during the day - and it also marked six months since I'd flown out of Wellington way back on the 6th of January.

I also suddenly realised how badly my French had deteriorated since leaving school - and probably more so since learning Spanish. I found myself asking for "dos" instead of "deux", wanting to say "gracias" instead of "merci"... However I walked into town for a brief look around - it was a gorgeous city centre - and got myself a Belgian beer (they make them good around here) to soak in the atmosphere of a true international city.

First thing the next morning I headed on the metro to the Euro area of Bruxelles, home to the European Union (EU) Parliament among several other important EU buildings. A very good exhibition, Parliamentarium, depicted the history of European collaboration and the EU since the late 1940's, right from the initial stages of conception through to the acceptance of Croatia as an EU member just a week previously.

Sign on the European Parliament building in all official EU languages

Bruxelles also has it's own Arc de Triomphe, built in the Parc du Cinquantenaire (French name) or Jubelpark (Flemish name). The park commemorates 50 years of Belgium as a country - it was previously part of the Dutch empire until the 1830 revolutions - and, like everywhere in Bruxelles/Brussel, has two names in the two languages.

Arc de Triomphe/Triomfboog

The Royal Musuem of Art & History is attached to one wing of the arch, and the Royal Museum of Armed Forces & Military History is on the other wing, which is where I headed next. Free museums are always a good attraction, and this one had some very good exhibitons, including one I found particularly interesting on World War II. Some of the main signage was in English, but much of it was only in French or Flemish, which I found I could pick up about 80% of in combination. They also had a huge hall full of old planes...

Impressive hall of old military planes

The museum also had a lift up to the top of the arch, which afforded a pretty amazing view of the city:

View from the top of the arch

On the way back to the hostel I stopped off at the Stripmuseum, as it's called in Flemish - a bit misleading perhaps to English speakers when it's actually a comic strip museum. They had a lot of displays of some very successful comics through the years, including, of course, the creator of Tintin, a Belgian who went by the name of Hergé. This, I discovered, was actually his pen-name, a spelling-out of RG in French, being the initials backwards of his true name, Georges Rémi.

The next day I headed out to the site where Bruxelles hosted the World Expo in 1958, mainly to get a quick look at a rather impressive, massive sculpture, the Atomium:

The 102 m high Atomium - re-shined in 2006

Back on the metro I headed to another corner of town - Bruxelles is a pretty big place of attractions to get around! - and found the Palais de Justice/Justitiepaleis. A pretty impressive building on a little hill with a nice view, it was unfortunately also inflicted with a pretty common sight around Europe, it seems - scaffolding for repair works. However the entrance hall was still just a bit grand...

Entrance hall in the Justice Palace

I had lunch in the Parc du Bruxelles/Warandepark and caught up a bit on my journal - it's getting notoriously out of date at the moment! - and stumbled across this neat little garden on the walk back to the city centre:

Cute garden with a view

I took a detour past the Mannakenpis - the smallest, silliest and busiest statue I've ever seen:

Mannakenpis. It's about a foot high. What makes it so popular??

And finally headed back into the main square, Grand Place/Grotemarkt. Despite being the main square and most people's first destination, it was kinda neat being the last thing to see in Bruxelles, and the lavishly decorated old buildings, crammed up against one another, were indeed quite the architectural marvel:

1690's buildings in Brussels' main square

More of Brussels' main square - once I asked yet another person to take a photo of me... I'm very grateful to all the people I've asked!

Then it was back to the hostel again, packing up for the next leg of the journey - a loop back around to the gorgeous southern Dutch city of Maastricht - where I was headed the next morning. Bruxelles truly was a neat city - very international, and with a real sense of a true European capital. Little old New Zealand has a long way to go to get the history that Europe is steeped in.