). However, Channel Five decided to mess around with the timings and so Ross crashed out and I watched the programme of my own to the accompaniment of his stentorian snoring.
Well, the mega-train holiday has begun.
Ross and I took an easy trip to London courtesy of Virgin Pendolino on Bank Holiday Monday and met up with his parents at the Premier Inn near Kings Cross. We had a relaxed evening, ate well at the hotel and took an early bed. We were both hoping to catch the last episode of Flash Forward (BTW that's the last ever episode of this excellent series as the American Network has decided not to fund a second series ). However, Channel Five decided to mess around with the timings and so Ross crashed out and I watched the programme of my own to the accompaniment of his stentorian snoring.
The morning brought June and the holiday's actual start.
Off to St Pancras and Searcy's Champagne bar.
I treated the party to some bubbly to get us going.
Then onto Eurostar.
We were going to be travelling First Class.
All the way.
Now, at this point, I need to make some points clear. We could not (Ross and I) have afforded this holiday were it not for his parents. His father has recently retired. He worked in a senior capacity for a large commercial firm and has finished his working life with a decent pot of money to his name. Consequently, he has taken a decision to treat each of his three children and their families to a holiday. Sam has been to the Maldives, Megan has been to Sorrento and we are going round Europe by train. We are travelling First Class with Four Star hotels and proper taxi transfers. Amazing.
It also needs to be said that it has mostly been organised by his parents. I suggested Italy (with Milan, Florence and Rome as the destinations) but they'd already done that. I suggested Spain (with Madrid, Seville and Granada as the destinations) but they done that as well. Ross and I suggested Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen but they didn't fancy that. So, we've ended up with Brussels, Nuremberg (a late interpolation), Vienna and Budapest as the itinerary.
The other point about the itinerary is that I would have based the timings around evening events. However, we are in Brussels between shows at La Monnaie - the opera house. There is nothing to write home about in Nuremberg while we are there. I could go to a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin at the Vienna Opera but wild horses would not get me across the threshold for that particular work. The Budapest Opera has completed its season by the time we arrive there. In fact, if you'd wanted to plan the trip so as to avoid any major operatic events then you could not have done it better. But then, what I would want is not what Ross's parents would want.
Anyhow, we travelled First Class by Eurostar to Brussels. It is a quick and easy service. However, the trains that felt so modern when I travelled to Köln back in 1997 are now feeling somewhat dated. The toileting facilities are cramped. The fixtures and fittings feel heavy and dull - from another age (which stylistically speaking they are).
We arrived on a grey day and I'm quite happy to allow that this may have coloured my initial impressions of the town as I explored on that afternoon. I saw dilapidation, peeling painting on buildings, gaffiti everywhere, uneven pavements, loose cobbles in the streets. It felt as though I were witnessing municipal neglect on a massive scale. And major tourist spots that I happened upon seemed smaller and less kempt than I might have expected. All in all, I felt a little dampened.
No problem with the hotel, however. We are in a designer boutique hotel called The Dominican. This is right at the back of La Monnaie which is a real irony in the circumstances. However, the place is lavishly comfortable. And you know that you are in designer land when
The only small downsides are a certain stinginess with the free tea and coffee service, the free bathroom products do not get replaced and the fact that the sponge-based mattresses collapse if you sit on the edge. But back to the positive, the breakfasts are fantabulosa. I've pigged out each morning. I had a waffle one morning - light, airy, melt-in-the-mouth sponge rather than the stodgy affair you get in the UK - and eggs benedict on another.
In our younger years, Ross and I would have shagged our way round this sort of film set like a pair of demented bunny rabbits. Nowadays, I am so totally uncertain about Ross's thoughts in this area that we mis-communicate on vast scale. The upshot is that with a little more preparation and a lot more input from him, we could probably have had a lot more fun. It's just that, in recent times, I have simply been fed up with him expecting me to do all the work. Nevertheless, we are on holiday and it would have been churlish not to have had sex in the shower or on the bed in full view of the wall mirrors. I'm all for a bit of spicy inventiveness.
Wednesday, we saw a lot more of the city. First off, we made for the René Magritte Museum up on the escarpment and in the Imperial part of the city rather then the old Flemish quarter which is where I spent most of Tuesday afternoon and evening. The weather had brightened and warmed up considerably. Maybe as a consequence, my mood lightened as well.
I really loved the Musée Magritte. If we do nothing else whilst we are here, then I shall not mind. The chance to see so many of his works together in one place was a real treat. It also showed me that he painted in many styles as well as the surrealist, photorealist styles with which I am familiar. There was one set of paintings which could easily have been painted by the Divisionists.
I got a real sense of the obsessions of the man, the blue skies, the man in the bowler hat, the leaf, the doors and windows, the birds, the face made of a string of pearls, the strange white ball which could have been a yoyo, etc.
I also liked the link through to Philip Pullman and The Subtle Knife with the pictures in which there is a rip, rent or tear through which you can see another reality. A very good experience.
![[Three and a Half Stars - Very Good]](3_5star.jpg){kind=small}
I took this photograph of this panel in the side entrance to the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts because it showed where the Gresham Insurance Company had offices and, in among the places listed, Liverpool gets a mention. Just goes to show how far the reach of my home city is.
And looking down the complete list, there are very few there that I haven't actually visited myself.
I suspect that one of the visual themes of this holiday is going to be Art Deco. Victor Horta is commonly thought of as one of Belgium's foremost proponents of the style. He occupies a position not unlike that of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Scotland.
The photograph on the right is of the former department store, Old England, which he designed and which is famous for its use of glass and steel rather than bricks and mortar. We both rather liked it.
We had a nice lunch out in the Parc de Bruxelles and then Ross and I took a long walk back to the hotel whilst his parents struck out. Walking along the spine of the escarpment towards the magnificent Palais de Justice, we came to Notre-Dame de Sablon. Our Dorling Kindersley guide book tells us that it is "one of the finest remaining examples of Brabant Gothic architecture in Belgium". It was certainly much more appealing than the cathedral which I'd looked in on the night before. I loved the proportions, I loved the simple elegance.
True to the Gothic style, the central nave is narrow and tall. The walls are supported externally by those wonderful creations - flying buttresses (I always think that, with the addition of a definite article, they sound just like a troupe of circus trapeze artistes) - the ceiling is cross hatched with ribbed vaulting. The result is a sense of stunning light through the stained glass windows. And those windows are the glory of this particular church. They are bright and clear with astonishingly pure colours. The restoration work (for the whole has clearly been restored in the most careful and loving fashion) has been exemplary.
Outside also, there had been a lot of work done restoring and replacing the statuary around the doorway arches. Many of the statues are completely new - the supporting mortar was the give away. But the overall effect was much more in keeping with the original than leaving the spaces empty from when Protestant iconoclasm had destroyed most of the visual glory of the Catholic church.
Clearly, I too had found my niche.
Ross and I spent an excellent half hour in the building.
![[Four Stars - Excellent]](4star.jpg){kind=small}
From there, it was all down hill through the Sablon district until we eventually ended up in the Grand Place. In fact, as we discovered, it was pretty near impossible to walk for any length of time before ending up in or near the Grand Place. Initially, I was most disappointed with this central touristic feature of Brussels. It simply felt much smaller than I was expecting from all of the wide angle photography I had seen in the guides. As time went on, that impression did not fade but the architectural splendour did grow on me.
The biggest and most imposing building is the Hotel de Ville (the medieval town hall). It is covered in statues and curlicues. Coming a close second, is the grey, lace-like tracery of the Maison du Roi. There appears to be a lot of restoration work going on. Certainly, one corner of the square looked as though the gold leaf has been recently replaced whereas elsewhere the gold was looking dull and lustreless.
And, from there, it was back to the hotel through the Galleries St Hubert, an exquisite covered shopping arcade. We found that we traversed this tourist trap on numerous occasions also.
That night we ate out in the Rue des Bouchers. It's a high density tourist trap. The meal was OK. But expensive for what it was. I had Waterzooi, which is a stew of chicken and vegetables poached in a creamy broth. However, I have no idea whether or not I actually ate anything which resembles the traditional Belgian dish.
So ended our first day.
On the second, Ross and I had a wander in the morning and did a few more touristic things. Up the hill, we encountered a tower which formed part of the original 12th century wall of the city.
And a little later on we encountered part of the wall itself.
We then had another encounter with a wonderful church - in this case it was Notre-Dame de la Chapelle.
The guide book told us to look out for the gargoyles - well check they were there. The guide book told us to look out for the cabbage leaves on the capitals atop the interior columns - and check they were there as well. There was also mention of a memorial stone to Peter Bruegel the Elder whose last resting place was somewhere in the church. So, we saw all of that. What wasn't mentioned was the really rather good statuary and the ghostly images of the Medieval paintings on the walls and pillars. It was another very good experience.
Then, once again, it was down the hill and through the Sablon district until we came upon the Manekin Pis, the statue of the little boy having a piss. London has lions in Trafalgar Square, Copenhagen has The Little Mermaid, Brussels has a little boy pissing. We took advantage of the photo opportunity. It's a long time since anyone has been able to see me with a small boy pissing over my right shoulder. Then we moved on quickly.
Our walk took us past some gay shops and then out towards Brussels Midi station through the Turkish quarter. We stopped for lunch in the Place Roupe Plein on the terrace of a café. Feeling that we needed a reasonably light lunch we ordered some open sandwiches. We were expecting something like a Croque Monsieur. What we got was something more substantial. The bread itself was something like 30cm long. Mine was covered in a layer of pesto sauce and then smothered in a rich layer of lightly stewed vegetables with the whole being topped off by two poached eggs. Ross's was covered in lettuce, tomato, chicken and bacon. Both were accompanied by a side salad. I had made the mistake of also ordering a side portion of chips. It was a lovely meal but we were both left too full to even think about any further meals for the rest of the day.
After lunch, I got Ross back to hotel and then went off to the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts. I made a big mistake here. The collection is divided into Ancient and Modern - that is from the 15th to the 18th Century in one group and the 19th and 20th Centuries in another. That arrangement I was happy with. What I hadn't twigged was that they were placed in two separate buildings joined by an underground passage. In fact, the Modern Art section joined up with the basement of the Musée Magritte. To do the collection justice, I should have stopped at the half-way point and had a bracing coffee and cake. But I didn't and so I reached an input overload.
So, what can I say that I got positively from the visit. Well, there were some lovely early Medieval works in which the painting of the fabrics of the women's clothes was exquisite - not surprisingly for a centre of excellence for the production of tapestry and lace. The work below is the Madonna and Saints by the Master of the Legend of St Lucy.
I discovered that Hieronymus Bosch was really called Jerome van Aeken. His Temptation of St Anthony was splendid and was interestingly mirrored by a work similarly named by Salvador Dali in the modern section.
There was a room of Bruegels. Plenty of peasants going about their daily life. Few of the figures in the crowds overlap - a little like L S Lowry in our time. Then there was the magnificent The Fall of the Rebel Angels which made me realise that Bosch was not working alone in a tradition all of his own.
A stack of works by Rubens and then some by Jacob Jordaens which made me realise that Rubens was not working alone in a tradition all of his own either. There were van Dyks and room of landscapes some looking like Constables but which were by Flemish or Dutch painters. There was a Rembrandt and a painting which could have been by Rembrandt but which wasn't so he was not working alone in a tradition all of his own either.
And so it was. I felt all the time that I was looking at works by other people. Being so used to the British collections, I simply associate certain styles with certain people. What this collection was doing was to show me a broader picture. That, once again, these stylistic trends are continent-wide.
This continued in the basement but I had more of a problem with the layout here. The gallery guide showed the works chronologically and with works by the same artist grouped together. The early collection followed this pattern. The modern collection didn't. Works seemed more grouped by theme. It was very frustrating trying to chase things down and ultimately, as my vitality sapped, I gave up.
Nevertheless, I liked the social realist works of Léon Frederic, particularly a group of five works which were portraits of peasant family groups, and Eugène Laermans, particularly Strike Night. I was particularly taken by James Ensor and Paul Delvaux - neither of whom I had particularly heard of before.
I've actually found more to write about than I thought I would which maybe says more about my mood on the afternoon. Still, I'm going to play safe and say that the experience was good but no more. Certainly it didn't approach my sense of excitement when I stepped into The Prado in Madrid last year.
![[Three Stars - Good]](3star.jpg){kind=small}
In the evening, Ross and I were still too full of food to consider joining his parents for evening meal. They went to the terrace café where we had dined. We struck out via the Place des Martyrs and the église St Jean Baptiste au Béguinage with its ornate Baroque façade to a new area of the city near to the gothic-styled église St Catherine. The Place St Catherine, the Quai aux Briques and the Quai au Bois à Brûler were full of jolly open air bistros selling a variety of expensive seafood dishes. It felt in ambiance a little like Notting Hill.
We simply had a coffee at a bar, bought some snacks from a supermarket and went back to the hotel to watch The Lovely Bones on the laptop. It was passable but I'm very glad that we hadn't made a point of going to the cinema to see it. Again, as an aside, I should mention that part of our preparation for this holiday was to load various media items, music, talking books, podcasts and movies onto the laptop to provide a constant source of electronic entertainment.
So, what can I say about our time in Brussels?
Well, I wouldn't race to come back. Like Madrid last year, this is a city which I am quite happy to have visited, which I could return to if there was something special to do but which I would not especially seek out again. We've eaten well (mostly), I've fallen in love with Duvel beer, there have been some pleasant sights, some very good works of art and a couple of wonderful churches.
And, this morning, we pack up and go to Nuremberg.