Exploring Brussels – April 26th 2019

Even though we’d been here three days, that I hadn’t actually had a chance to look round Brussels itself that much, so we decided to do that today.

We started off in the town centre again. There were quite a few streets surrounding The Grand Palace which we didn’t get to see.

I noticed there was quite a lot of street art around the city centre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed Maneken Pis again. Today, he was dressed as Dr Pis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before we came to Brussels, I had read that street food was quite good, so I thought that finding somewhere to get lunch would be easy, but as it turned out, there were virtually no food stalls in the town centre, so we had to settle for a fast food restaurant (which admittedly did serve quite good frites)

I noticed that  although most service staff  started off  speaking English rather than French or Flemish,  few cafés and restaurants had English translations of their menus.

After lunch, we walked back up past Centraal Station and through The Royal Library gardens. It certainly gave me a few new ideas my allotment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other side of the gardens, we came to the Royal Palace of Brussels. There was a motorcade coming out the gates as we walk past. We may have seen the king of Belgium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a look around the rather unimaginatively named Brussels Park in front of the palace. It was full of statues depicting Greek and Roman gods.

Once we had been round Brussels Park, we set off towards another park, The Parc Du Cinquantenaire, or 50th Anniversary Park in English, the anniversary in question being that of the country’s independence in 1880.

The park’s iconic arches were visible at the end of the road outside Brussels Park, but it turned out to be quite a long walk between the two.

For the second time, I was reminded of our trip to New York last summer, since  The World Trade Centre look like it was only a short distance away from the Empire State Building, but it took most of the day to walk between the two.

The route to the park took us through the headquarters of the European Union, so now when they talk about the European Parliament and the European commission on the news, I know exactly where they’re talking about.

 

We walked as far as the arches and then set off back into town.

 

 

We walked back  via a slightly different route and on the way back past the European Parliament, We came across a set of rather odd sculptures which were apparently meant to be “European citizens “