Brussels II
Oct. 3rd, 2019 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeWe had hoped to go to the Delirium bar on Saturday night, but upon approaching the alleyway down which it exists, we noticed just how busy it was. Not wanting to battle through the crowds, we opted to head to our ultimate destination for the evening - Le Cercueil just off Grand Place. Called The Coffin, this goth-themed bar has coffin tables and a range of spooky themed decor, coupled with some banging heavy metal music. We had discovered it during our last trip to Brussels and ended up staying here for three hours, imbibing their impressive range of Belgian beers. This time, things didn't start auspiciously as we were shunted to the drafty side room where no music was playing, a frustrating situation when some of our favourites were being blasted out. However, soon a couple moved from one of the bigger tables and we swooped in, eventually talking to the trio who were sat opposite us. One was a Moroccan guy to whom I had to be nice about his country, despite it being the worst place I have ever visited, while there was a Spanish lady working in Brussels and an Italian chap. The Italian guy left about an hour in, leaving the four of us, and we spent quite a while chatting about this and that, enjoying the ambience. As before, it wasn't until about 3am by the time we left, with the beer being quite deceptive as its strength somehow caught up with us. It was a weird drunk, not similar to that in the UK, but you could definitely feel it, more so the next morning. Bailing then and leaving our new friends was definitely the right call.
On our way back to the hotel, we swung by Jo Cox Square, which was tucked away behind one of the main streets in the city centre. A rather non-descript place, of course it did have significant poignancy for us as she was murdered not too far from where we live. I remember that day very vividly, as well as the commemorations made when the square was dedicated around this time last year, so it was certainly great to see it, despite how moving the experience was.
We woke up just after 11am on Sunday, somewhat groggy after the night before, and after a quick shower, we checked out of the hotel and headed into town. We weren't too sure where to go, so we decided to stop off at local fast food chain Quick for lunch. The burgers here are quite odd as they are served in wholemeal rather than white buns, with the bread actually having the slight tang of lemon or sourdough. The burger itself - a bacon beefburger - was reasonable enough but it was the fries which were the outstanding thing here. There were so many of them that I started to feel a little bloated mind, but combined with mayonnaise and ketchup, these were pretty good. I was a little aghast that we were charged €0.50 to use the bathroom despite being patrons, but sitting on the white formica tables and just vegetating for an hour at least gave us ample recovery time.
Wolfie couldn't drink as he had to drive us back home from Manchester Airport later that day, and upon realising that we wouldn't have too much time to spend in Bruges due to the need to get our flight, we decided to stay in Brussels for the afternoon. The weather was most inclement, rainy with strong winds, but I realised that this gave us an opportunity to go to the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee, which is one place we didn't have time to check out last time. Our GPS was behaving erratically even though we were on the main drag, but once we had found our bearings, we walked the ten minutes or so to this fascinating museum. Situated in one of the old industrial districts whose heart was torn out of it in the 1920s by the railway network, the museum is one of Art Nouveau designer Victor Horta's finest works. Indeed, it is also one of the few that is still standing, but the external frontice of glass and steel cast an impressive sight whose cheque was cashed as soon as you walked through the door, the huge external space with slim metal pillars, girders and grills complemented wonderfully by the huge glass room casting light across them. Designed as a department store, it also featured as a printworks and there was a little exhibition inside the museum dedicated to the building itself, not to mention Horta.
We weren't here for that however, we were here for the comic books, of which Belgium has an incredibly rich history. Tintin, the Smurfs and Boule et Bill are all of Belgian origin and there were parts of the museum dedicated to each of them. My favourite bit was undoubtedly Boule et Bill, which charted family life through the relationship between a child and his cocker spaniel. All of the comics were in French and Dutch, but I understood enough of it to get the gist most times, which is more than can be said for some of the more complicated comics. The history of all these legendary titles was also covered, while the temporary exhibition was dedicated to the varied works of Griffo, the author of the Giacomo C series amongst others. I did feel that having the descriptions in English was useful, but being unable to speak French in particular did limit the experience somewhat, meaning that some of the exhibitions I largely just skirted. Despite this, we still ended up spending three and a half hours walking around, soaking up the sheer talent and evocative artwork that was on display. The history of the comic book, from cave paintings all the way through to hieroglyphics and Hogarth, gave me a new perspective on this medium as I have always dismissed comics as being far more trivial than novels and printed literature. Yet, seeing the laborious process of creating a comic, my view on them was somewhat transformed and I did feel a deeper appreciation for this form of art. Walking around, we also got to see a number of key props including Tintin's red rocket and Boule et Bill's famous red car amongst other things.
Two of my highlights were undoubtedly the Boerke cartoons, which were unscripted and thus easy to follow, and the first ever animated film, Gertie the Dinosaur from 1914. This 12-minute short by animator Winsor McCay was fascinating, as it was set in a drawing room with real life actors before the action was transferred onto a page through which Gertie was introduced. The interaction was heartwarming and the story pure, and I was transfixed right to the end. Indeed, everything about this museum was magical and wonderous aside from the guy at the front desk calling the UK 'Brexitland' when he asked us where we were from. It was yet another Brexit remark we had heard throughout the duration of our trip.
After the museum, we walked around the giftshop, where I bought a Bill keyring and lamented the fact there was little point buying the cute Mausart book based on Mozart's life as if he were a mouse as it was all in French. The same was true of Boule et Bill, so I contented myself with sitting in the adjacent cafe and having a cup of tea. I wanted a Belgian waffle too but they had sadly run out. As we looked out of the window of the cafe, we noticed the Marc Sleen Museum, dedicated to the life and works of the creator of The Adventures of Nero and Co, was over the road and as it was free we thought we might as well pop in. It was certainly an interesting twenty minutes learning about another one of Belgium's more popular cartoonists, and we even got to see a replica of the study where he used to work in the countryside just out of Brussels.
We had hoped to go to the Musical Instruments Museum but we had taken so long in the Comic Book one that we didn't have time. We toyed with the idea of going to a bar, noticing that the famous A La Morte Subite was very close by. Walking past, we noticed it was quite busy so thought we would pick our bags up from the hotel and come back, if only to be a lot closer to the train station to catch the train to the airport. This is what we did, but I remembered that we had a free drink from the hotel so we thought we might as well grab a coke there while we killed some time. Alas, in this periodm the heavens opened and the rain became torrential, delaying us somewhat as we didn't want to get drenched. In the end, after waiting about half an hour, we just had to go, eschewing the ten minute walk to Central Station by walking just three minutes to the Metro stop then getting the train just one stop down the line. It was lazy but far better than having drenched trousers for the next six hours as we made our way home, although our pants ended up getting pretty wet anyway.
The plan had been to eat dinner at the airport - not ideal, but all we could do with the time we had. We arrived with about two and a half hours to spare, and with customs and security easy, we soon were in the main terminal building. Alas, there was little there of good value or of interest, as I didn't really want yet more chips. In the end, we just grabbed an extremely expensive sandwich and waited, with our flight being delayed meaning it wasn't until after midnight by the time we got home. Still, it was a very good trip all told in one of my favourite cities, so I'll have to go back there again sometime.
On our way back to the hotel, we swung by Jo Cox Square, which was tucked away behind one of the main streets in the city centre. A rather non-descript place, of course it did have significant poignancy for us as she was murdered not too far from where we live. I remember that day very vividly, as well as the commemorations made when the square was dedicated around this time last year, so it was certainly great to see it, despite how moving the experience was.
We woke up just after 11am on Sunday, somewhat groggy after the night before, and after a quick shower, we checked out of the hotel and headed into town. We weren't too sure where to go, so we decided to stop off at local fast food chain Quick for lunch. The burgers here are quite odd as they are served in wholemeal rather than white buns, with the bread actually having the slight tang of lemon or sourdough. The burger itself - a bacon beefburger - was reasonable enough but it was the fries which were the outstanding thing here. There were so many of them that I started to feel a little bloated mind, but combined with mayonnaise and ketchup, these were pretty good. I was a little aghast that we were charged €0.50 to use the bathroom despite being patrons, but sitting on the white formica tables and just vegetating for an hour at least gave us ample recovery time.
Wolfie couldn't drink as he had to drive us back home from Manchester Airport later that day, and upon realising that we wouldn't have too much time to spend in Bruges due to the need to get our flight, we decided to stay in Brussels for the afternoon. The weather was most inclement, rainy with strong winds, but I realised that this gave us an opportunity to go to the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee, which is one place we didn't have time to check out last time. Our GPS was behaving erratically even though we were on the main drag, but once we had found our bearings, we walked the ten minutes or so to this fascinating museum. Situated in one of the old industrial districts whose heart was torn out of it in the 1920s by the railway network, the museum is one of Art Nouveau designer Victor Horta's finest works. Indeed, it is also one of the few that is still standing, but the external frontice of glass and steel cast an impressive sight whose cheque was cashed as soon as you walked through the door, the huge external space with slim metal pillars, girders and grills complemented wonderfully by the huge glass room casting light across them. Designed as a department store, it also featured as a printworks and there was a little exhibition inside the museum dedicated to the building itself, not to mention Horta.
We weren't here for that however, we were here for the comic books, of which Belgium has an incredibly rich history. Tintin, the Smurfs and Boule et Bill are all of Belgian origin and there were parts of the museum dedicated to each of them. My favourite bit was undoubtedly Boule et Bill, which charted family life through the relationship between a child and his cocker spaniel. All of the comics were in French and Dutch, but I understood enough of it to get the gist most times, which is more than can be said for some of the more complicated comics. The history of all these legendary titles was also covered, while the temporary exhibition was dedicated to the varied works of Griffo, the author of the Giacomo C series amongst others. I did feel that having the descriptions in English was useful, but being unable to speak French in particular did limit the experience somewhat, meaning that some of the exhibitions I largely just skirted. Despite this, we still ended up spending three and a half hours walking around, soaking up the sheer talent and evocative artwork that was on display. The history of the comic book, from cave paintings all the way through to hieroglyphics and Hogarth, gave me a new perspective on this medium as I have always dismissed comics as being far more trivial than novels and printed literature. Yet, seeing the laborious process of creating a comic, my view on them was somewhat transformed and I did feel a deeper appreciation for this form of art. Walking around, we also got to see a number of key props including Tintin's red rocket and Boule et Bill's famous red car amongst other things.
Two of my highlights were undoubtedly the Boerke cartoons, which were unscripted and thus easy to follow, and the first ever animated film, Gertie the Dinosaur from 1914. This 12-minute short by animator Winsor McCay was fascinating, as it was set in a drawing room with real life actors before the action was transferred onto a page through which Gertie was introduced. The interaction was heartwarming and the story pure, and I was transfixed right to the end. Indeed, everything about this museum was magical and wonderous aside from the guy at the front desk calling the UK 'Brexitland' when he asked us where we were from. It was yet another Brexit remark we had heard throughout the duration of our trip.
After the museum, we walked around the giftshop, where I bought a Bill keyring and lamented the fact there was little point buying the cute Mausart book based on Mozart's life as if he were a mouse as it was all in French. The same was true of Boule et Bill, so I contented myself with sitting in the adjacent cafe and having a cup of tea. I wanted a Belgian waffle too but they had sadly run out. As we looked out of the window of the cafe, we noticed the Marc Sleen Museum, dedicated to the life and works of the creator of The Adventures of Nero and Co, was over the road and as it was free we thought we might as well pop in. It was certainly an interesting twenty minutes learning about another one of Belgium's more popular cartoonists, and we even got to see a replica of the study where he used to work in the countryside just out of Brussels.
We had hoped to go to the Musical Instruments Museum but we had taken so long in the Comic Book one that we didn't have time. We toyed with the idea of going to a bar, noticing that the famous A La Morte Subite was very close by. Walking past, we noticed it was quite busy so thought we would pick our bags up from the hotel and come back, if only to be a lot closer to the train station to catch the train to the airport. This is what we did, but I remembered that we had a free drink from the hotel so we thought we might as well grab a coke there while we killed some time. Alas, in this periodm the heavens opened and the rain became torrential, delaying us somewhat as we didn't want to get drenched. In the end, after waiting about half an hour, we just had to go, eschewing the ten minute walk to Central Station by walking just three minutes to the Metro stop then getting the train just one stop down the line. It was lazy but far better than having drenched trousers for the next six hours as we made our way home, although our pants ended up getting pretty wet anyway.
The plan had been to eat dinner at the airport - not ideal, but all we could do with the time we had. We arrived with about two and a half hours to spare, and with customs and security easy, we soon were in the main terminal building. Alas, there was little there of good value or of interest, as I didn't really want yet more chips. In the end, we just grabbed an extremely expensive sandwich and waited, with our flight being delayed meaning it wasn't until after midnight by the time we got home. Still, it was a very good trip all told in one of my favourite cities, so I'll have to go back there again sometime.
