Travellers note: If you are going to sleep in Brussels you would do well to bring earplugs with you. Amongst their other attributes, the Belgian are apparently tireless workers, as evidenced by the construction crew who was grinding metal at 2 in the ever-loving morning! Just a tip.
Anyway, the construction crew eventually went home for the morning and I was able to nab a few hours of sleep to get me through another day of cool European cities to see. Megan and I swung by the breakfast area for a quick bite to eat and then headed once more into the town square of Brussels.
Our first stop of the day was the Brussels Museum of cultural history. This museum is housed in a very large structure that was previously used for another purpose. Perhaps a palace, or maybe a state house. I’m a bit fuzzy on this because throughout the museum the only languages available were French and Belgian Dutch (a.k.a. Flemish), neither of which I am literate in. Since I don’t know for certain, I am going to say that the building used to be the Brussels College of International Clown Sciences.
As befits a school for clown science, most of the upper floor was dedicated to the many costumes that belong to the statue of a tiny (approx. 2’ tall) peeing boy named “Manneken Pis”. And they had every outfit imaginable: Cosmonaut, Elvis, Aztec Chieftain, Policeman, Prince (the royal-type, not the gender-ambiguous-‘artist-formerly-known-as’-type). All said, Manneken Pis’ total wardrobe numbered over 700 different outfits. The little dude could change his clothes 2x/day and still not make it through his entire closet in a year! He had some nice threads, too, I must say..
After taking in some local culture at the museum, we strolled up the hill to the St. Michel Cathedral, which is beautiful. We toured the interior for a bit, noting that there was a concert scheduled there for lunchtime, so we decided to move onto our next scheduled event and return for the music later.
The next fabulous sight on our tour of Belgium’s capital city was the Museum at Belgium’s Central Bank. I know it sounds kinda lame, but it was actually a very informative look at money around the world and in Belgium since early man first used seeds and beans as currency. There was a particularly large portion devoted to the recent significance of the Euro and the way that the value of that currency is managed collectively by the central banks of the E.U. They also had a weird alchemy room that we didn’t understand because neither of us know French or Flemish alchemy terminology (clearly a failing of our schooling). To this day, we are still very confused about why this room was included in a money museum. But, what-ev. The museum was really nice despite being a little cryptic in that regard.
On our way out of the museum, we hopped back across the street for the lunch-time choir concert at the Cathedral, as mentioned previously. It was everything you’d expect a choir concert in a gothic-style cathedral to be. Their voices filled the giant stone forum like a chorus of angels. Cheesy, yes, but I’m serious because it was really beautiful. Unfortunately, we only had time to catch about 10 minutes, though because we had a train to catch and hadn’t eaten lunch yet.
Lunch was awesome, as nearly all the food has been up to this point. This particular meal consisted of a Croque Hawaiian and also cream-sauce covered pasta at an outdoor café; this was followed by an official Belgian Waffle (covered in Chocolate and strawberries) sold from one of about 50 store-front vendors that sell these in Brussels. They are *divine*. IHOP ain’t got nuttin’ on this place : )
Finally, we were off to the Bruxelles-Midi train station for our next train to…. Luxembourg!
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