scrapheapstuart3

I’ve been to Brussels, the capital of Belgium 3 times and nearly went there on another occasion. It’s been a city of mixed fortunes for me. Good things and not so good things have happened there.

I first attempted to go way back in 1972, newly married and a newly qualified teacher. It was to be a grand tour of the Low Countries by rail, starting in Bruges and finishing up in Amsterdam. In those days we went across the Channel by boat as there was no tunnel. Very sadly, just before we set off, my new father-in-law unexpectedly died. Our departure was thus greatly delayed. Instead of wandering around the Belgian capital, I found myself at a sombre funeral in Kent. The holiday, although much needed by my grieving wife, was greatly truncated and Brussels was missed out.

Incredibly I didn’t get around to trying again until 2012 when I went with my travel buddy, Eric. We had met on a group tour of Romania and went on several holidays together, mostly in northern Europe. Belgium fitted the bill exactly. On this jaunt, we had a few days days in Brussels followed by a few in Bruges, with a visit to Ghent thrown in for good measure. In Brussels we stayed in the gritty, working class suburb of Anderlecht, famous for its football team, the most successful in Belgium. We must have booked there because it was cheap. It certainly felt authentic. We had a room up a steep staircase above a typical continental bar and brasserie. It made us feel as though we were in the real Belgium rather than in an anonymous chain hotel. Our room overlooked a crossroads, very busy during the day but eerily quiet at night. Every morning we drank our coffees and witnessed the rush hour traffic build up to a crescendo and then gradually die down again.

The location wasn’t exactly convenient. We had a half hour hoof to the nearest Metro station, where we got the train into the centre. Of course, we wanted to see the Grand Place which is often described as one of the most beautiful squares in the world. It certainly impressed. A huge, cobbled space in the heart of the city, it showcases a stunning panorama of Gothic and Baroque architecture from the 15th to the 19th centuries. A medieval town hall is faced on 3 sides by ornate guild houses all built to show how rich and successful their tradesmen sponsors were. These highly ornate old buildings are decorated with statues, arches, classical columns, pinnacles, fancy gables, and most eye-catching of all — glittering gold.

It should have been a memorable moment when Eric and I walked into the famous square, but our attention was instead caught by a large stage and giant speakers set up for a pop concert that evening. So we had to try to imagine what it must look like when not invaded by all this modern paraphernalia.

Despite this slight disappointment we had a good time in Brussels. We visited the art gallery in the Upper Town to see paintings by the so-called Flemish Primitives ie Brueghel the Elder, Bosch and Memling, as well as masterworks by the French artist Jacques-Louis David. I remember being stopped in my tracks by David’s world famous “Death of Marat” ( 1793), which shows the French revolutionary bleeding to death in his bath after being stabbed by Charlotte Corday. I’d seen it so many times in history textbooks that I couldn’t believe I was actually standing in front of the real thing. The gruesome scene shows Marat slumped in his bath-tub holding a letter from his assassin in his left hand and a writing quill in his lifeless right hand. He had used his bathroom as his office because of a serious skin condition.

In that 2012 visit we visited the spectacular, glass-roofed shopping arcade Galeries Royale St Hubert ( 1846), one of the largest and earliest in Europe at the time. We climbed to the Upper Town to see the Royal Palace and the formal park opposite. Then we descended in a glass-walled lift to the Marolles, the now gentrified but still atmospheric working class area of cobbled squares, open air markets, and little shops and bars. We stopped at an outside cafe where Eric wound up the waitress by asking if they had any beer? ( Belgium has more brewers per head of the population than any other country in the world.)

We passed by the Mannekin-PIs, the famous statue of a small, urinating boy, but hardly gave it a second glance as it was so underwhelming, despite it being on many a tourist’s list. The undoubted highlight of our stay was a tour of the city’s Art Nouveau architecture. Brussels was the birthplace of Art Nouveau which flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two architects in particular, Victor Horta and Paul Hankar started creating organic forms that broke with tradition. In their buildings, there was no such thing as a straight line or right angle. Ironically they were reacting to the uniform, mass-production of the industrial age, but at the same time were using products of that very industrialisation, such as wrought iron and glass.

We did the tour with an excellent organisation called ARAU. ( Atelier de Recherche et d’Action Urbaines.) It’s a heritage-action group set up to help protect Brussels’ historical architecture, especially Art Nouveau and Art Deco. The tour was fascinating. We visited the only surviving Horta designed department store ( 1906), the Grand Magasin Wauquez, famous for its stained glass, huge windows letting in floods of light and ornamental iron grills, girders and balustrades. It’s now the Belgian Comic Strip Centre. Belgium is second only to the United States in the production of cartoon, the most famous being Tintin and the Smurfs. We took a bus south of the centre to the Ixelles and St Gilles neighbourhoods. Here we visited an art nouveau school and a sumptuous private house paid for by the immense riches earned in the colonial era when Belgium ruled and exploited the Congo in central Africa. Leaving the dubious morality of empire aside, we were privileged to gain access to such a mansion. We were told that no photography was allowed. A female caretaker arrived to unlock the door and followed us from room to room with an eagle eye as the guide gave his expert explanations. Suddenly though, he stopped and abruptly ordered 2 young Asian girls to get out immediately and wait outside. The caretaker had spotted them surreptitiously taking photos. We were just then at the beginning of the Instagram age when some feel compelled to snap everything. The guide explained that future groups might no longer gain access to this wonderful house if the transgression was reported back to the owner. Despite this unfortunate incident, it was an interesting and enlightening tour and we learnt a lot.

My next visit to Brussels came in 2022 with another travel buddy and close friend, Ian. We stayed in Mechelen, a small city halfway between Antwerp and the capital. We took the half hour train journey for what we planned was the first of 2 visits to Brussels. Once again I was bowled over by the splendid St Hubert shopping arcade. We were particularly impressed by a couple of chocolate shops lit up by bright lights shaded by beautiful Tiffany-style glass. We went on to the Grand Place which greatly impressed Ian, but again I was slightly disappointed because this time it was hosting, not a pop concert but a beer festival! Apparently 100 beers were on tap. However, the marquees and security fences rather detracted from the architectural splendour all around.

Following a guide book trail we made our way via atmospheric narrow streets to Place St Catherine where an open air market was in progress and then out to a lovely church called Eglise St Jean Baptitse. It was all very interesting and we enjoying our meander. Unfortunately one of the downs of my visits to Brussels now took place. I was robbed of about 200 euros. The guy did it by asking me for change, ostensibly for parking. Wanting to be helpful to a fellow tourist ( he said he was German) I naively took out my wallet. He distracted me by trying to give me some sort of shopping token which he kept pushing towards me. I declined as I didn’t understand what he was saying. It was only later in the day that I realised he had relieved me of almost all my cash. There was just one 10 euro note left to hide the fact that everything else had been swiped! It left a sour taste in our mouths and we decided not to visit Brussels for a second day because of this bad experience.

We did however get to see the wonderful Horta House before I realised I had been robbed. This is the art nouveau home and studio of the turn of the century ( 19th to 20th) architect Victor Horta. It’s now called the Musee Horta. We found our way to the St Gilles district on the metro. Frustratingly they wouldn’t let us in until we had booked online even though we were there in the flesh and there was space inside. It was only a year after covid and everyone was very nervous about overcrowding. Thus online booking and timed tickets were now the order of the day. We had to stand in the street, get on the booking site on our phones, pay for our tickets, contact our bank for a verification code and finally get the magical QR code that we needed to get in. Ironically, the lad on the door couldn’t get his scanner to beep when it pointed to the code on my screen. In the end he let us in anyway after all that fuss. He gave us tickets from a basket which we showed to another man who promptly put it back into the same basket!

Musee Horta is wonderful inside. Horta himself lived there until his death in 1919. It is a light-filled, sensuous creation, full of ornate, curving wrought iron and stained glass alongside beautiful wooden furniture and panelling. The central feature is a delicate staircase spiralling up the whole height of the house and bathed in natural light from a large skylight above. It is decorated with painted motifs and is surrounded by mirrors which increase the sense of space and light. It would be impossible to describe every detail. Suffice to say that it is like going through the Looking Glass ( or the back of the Wardrobe) and entering a magical alternative world. I was entranced but when I went to buy some postcards it was then I realised that I had been robbed. Talk about going from one emotional extreme to another! It seemed to sum up my mixed fortunes in Brussels.

After all that it was with some trepidation that I went back to Brussels again this year with my wife Chris. Once more I stayed in Mechelen like I did with Ian, and we made the easy train journey to the capital. This is when I get to repeat some of the things I said earlier — sorry! Chris had never been to Brussels so I had to show her the impressive shopping arcade : the Galeries Royale St Hubert. By a small miracle we got to see it when it was virtually empty. We arrived there at 8-30am and had it to ourselves. I read that shopping arcades went out of fashion with the rise of department stores. It’s sad and somewhat ironic that department stores are now struggling and having to give way to internet shopping. We have 2 empty ones in Middlesbrough near where I live. Anyway we visited this historic arcade in Brussels which is surviving thanks to tourism. As on previous visits we next went on to the Grand Place. We had come so early because we were booked on a walking tour starting there at 10am. Just for once — a stroke of luck — the grand square was empty. Previous visits had coincided with a music concert and a beer festival. This time however, we could see the square in all its glory. It started to rain a bit, but you cannot have everything. Unfortunately we were due to find our guide by looking for a white umbrella but now the whole square was awash with them.

We had booked ourselves on to a 3 hour Art Nouveau walking tour. The organisation I had previously gone on a similar tour with was not operating in April which was a shame. The tour was quite expensive — £51 each– but it said it would cover the highlights of art nouveau in Brussels and would finish at the Musee Horta which I already knew was/is wonderful. We met the group and the guide, Maria, without any trouble. The rain had stopped and most of the umbrellas had gone down. Marie started her introduction, talking through a microphone attached to her head. Unfortunately the mike kept slipping off, I had trouble deciphering Maria’s accent and there was a lot of background noise as the Grand Place filled up with more and more tourists. It was a very mixed start.

We moved off up the hill called the Mont des Arts to the Upper Town. I was still only picking up about 25% of what the guide was saying. I wasn’t the only one having trouble as 3 people left the tour after about 10 minutes. Slowly though, I got used to Maria’s voice and started up to understand more. We stood outside a former art nouveau department store at the top of the hill. It is now a musical instrument museum. We heard its history and admired its twirling, unusual ironwork. We now jumped on a tram –an exciting moment for me– tapping in with our credit cards. We travelled south into the Ixelles and St Gilles areas and got off after 5 stops. Despite traffic it was much quieter here because of the lack of tourists. I started to hear more of what Maria was saying. It was really interesting stuff, especially as she was giving her personal interpretations alongside the standard speel. However I now had to absorb another disappointment, as the guide informed us that we weren’t going to go inside any of the buildings. We would be standing outside, looking at the fancy doors and windows of the exterior and Maria would show us photos of the wonders inside. I thought this wasn’t good enough considering the price we had paid — over £100 between us. Still, we had to go with it and like I said, a lot of what she told us was very interesting. Our group consisted of Dutch, Americans and us Brits. 3 more people left near the end because Maria’s enthusiasm led her to over-run. But the majority stayed the course.

Maria’s enthusiasm for the subject of Art Nouveau was infectious. She had really got into it during the covid lockdowns. She lived in the St Gilles area so incorporated many of the buildings into her lockdown exercise walks. She gave too much information, in my opinion, but we learnt quite a lot. Art Nouveau was basically an architectural style for the wealthy. It was a way of showing off to the neighbours about their success. If you were super rich in the 1890s, you could hire an eminent architect to design a house to suit your personal taste. Horta and Hankar were the main men to go to in Brussels, the equivalent of Gaudi in Barcelona. Art Nouveau was a reaction to industrialisation and mass production. It was influenced by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain. Its buildings have many allusions to the natural world. The movement was also political, being a Socialist reaction to Catholicism and the traditionalists. The new natural art style was a statement of identity. Sometimes this style is called “Total Art”. That’s because the architect, craftsmen and artists had total control over every aspect of the building, from door handles to taps, from lights to furniture. The same approach was being followed by Charles Rennie McIntosh and his wife Margaret McDonald in Scotland at the same time. Art Nouveau buildings have lots of natural light, originally inspired by the Crystal Palace in London. Coloured glass was imported from the Tiffany works in America. Sometimes the architect’s quest for total control got a bit carried away however. One architect even went so far as designing all his wife’s dresses! It wasn’t a movement for feminists.

Maria explained that Art Nouveau was also about escapism. It was about going into an inner world. Of course, this art movement was taking off at the same time as Sigmund Freud’s theories about the workings of the mind were surfacing in Vienna. The tour finally finished outside the Musee Horta on rue Americaine in St Gilles. Here we had to absorb a triple blow. We had assumed that we would finish with a tour of the house but this wasn’t the case. What’s more, we couldn’t even see the outside of this Horta masterpiece as it was covered in scaffolding and protective sheeting. Thirdly, we found that we couldn’t book to see it later that afternoon as it was fully booked all day and every day for the foreseeable future. This is yet another result of mass tourism. Why didn’t they all just stay at home? And so the tour, interesting as it was, ended in anti-climax. To cap it all, it had started to rain again — heavier than before.

The tour had ended but we realised that we didn’t know where we were or how to get back to the city centre. We had just followed the guide out here and she had now disappeared before we had had the chance to ask her for directions. To make matters worse, the rain was getting heavier and we both needed the loo, especially Chris. She had been wanting to go since the beginning of the 3.5 hour tour. Thus we were in a bit of a pickle to put it mildly. So, first things first — we needed a toilet. I looked down the street and on a corner about 200 metres away was a bar announced by its outside tables and chairs. We headed straight for it. It was empty inside and luckily the bar girl understood English. I quickly ordered coffees and ascertained where the facilities were. It was a bit like the relief of Mafeking, for those of you who know your Boer war. We sipped our coffees, watched the rain drops running down the window and listened to loud French pop music. We couldn’t have got much further from a cosy, guided tour if we had tried. After about 15 to 20 minutes the rain eased. But we still had the problem of finding out where we were and figuring out how to get back to the centre. It was like a real life version of an escape room. I vaguely remembered that in my previous visit to this area, I had caught a metro. By studying my guide book map and looking at google maps, I finally worked where we were and how to get to the station. Trams were plentiful but no good as we didn’t know where they were going and we might end up in an even bigger mess if we caught one. Anyway, after a 15 minute trek we made it to Horta station. We now had to figure out which line to catch and how to get tickets from the machine. As is usual in this impersonal day and age, there was no person to ask for help. Our first attempt to make sense of the ticket machine ended up with us getting a receipt but no tickets. We must have pressed the wrong button at some point. After carefully observing other passengers we tried again and this time succeeded. Our tickets got us through the barriers and we caught the pink line north for 4 stops. It was crowded but 2 young people kindly got up for us to sit down. We must be looking old!

Back in the centre we explored the area around the old Bourse or Stock Exchange building . It looks like an ancient Greek temple. The streets were now heaving with tourists. We stumbled across the St Hubert shopping arcade again and this time it was absolutely crammed with people. It was quite shocking to behold — more like a massive rugby scrum than a sedate shopping centre. We ended up eating in a small bar, with more loud pop music and 3 or 4 men propped up on high stools drinking their pints. The food was OK and we enjoyed the 80s music. At least it was an authentic Brussels experience instead of a tourist trap. Finally we revisited the Mont des Arts which has lovely formal gardens and sweeping views from the top. We visited the extensive shop of the Musee des Beaux Arts. Chris likes shops and we both like art so we were in our element. Finally we walked through the upper town to see the Gothic Sablon church and a beautiful little park opposite it with lovely flowers and statues set into hedges.

I had survived another visit to Brussels. The day had had its highs and lows but overall had been very enjoyable. Just like all my other visits to the city, this one had been a day of mixed fortunes but we had navigated it successfully and had a great adventure. Now all I have to do is to go back to Brussels yet again to see the interiors of some of those art nouveau mansions we couldn’t get into on this occasion. Next time we will book well ahead and certainly go out of season to beat the worst of the crowds. Brussels 2027, here we come.