SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4
A TERRIFYING NIGHT
At 1AM, I was awakened by loud speaking inside the building, and people moving around, banging into walls and eventually pounding on our door. Our door was flimsy, made of two thin pieces of wood, hollow in the middle. The banging was hard and persistent. It sounded like two men, or maybe a man and women. They spoke Spanish. Frozen with fright, I didn’t move, locked in one position, barely breathing.
Chloe, sleeping on the foldout couch in the living room right next to the front door, tiptoed into my room, shaking with fear, and got into bed with me. We were afraid two or more men had broken into the building. The shouting and banging of the intruders was magnified by the deep silence of night. As we huddled together, I looked up the number for the Brussel’s police. We waited. Heard a woman’s voice. The sound of furniture moving above us. We waited. After about an hour, there was silence and our hearts stopped racing. Chloe made her way back to the foldout bed.
Not exactly a restful night.
In the morning, I sent a message to the Airbnb owner. Turns out that we were in the wrong apartment, and the people who arrived late the night before were supposed to be in our apartment. No doubt they were drunk and a bit crazy but still it was me who picked up the wrong key (impossible for me to know that though since it wasn’t marked). The owner apologized.
A BUMPY MORNING
I got in the shower, and as I was coming out of the bathroom, the front door opened, and a woman stood in the entrance.
“What the hell?” I called out. “Get out of here.”
“I’m here to clean,” she said.
“No, you are not. Get out.” I was nearly naked. That was it. Startled one too many times, I called the owner again and laid into him. An hour later he came by in person to apologize…again.
And so began our first day in Brussels.
To add to the bizarre, we had decided this would be the day we started exercising. At a certain point in the chaos and disruption of travel, you realize you have lost control not only of time and place but also of your own body. It was time to reclaim some of that control. We found a gym around the corner and forced ourselves onto the elliptical and treadmill until sweat, from two types of exhaustion (tiredness and exertion) covered our faces.
INTO THE CENTER OF BRUSSELS
Tram 93 was a straight shot from our neighborhood to the Royal Palace and Mont Des Arts where the visitors’ information center is located. Through the clouded window the poor neighborhood where we caught the tram transformed from small shops to grand, marble architecture. Realizing we had very little time left to visit museums, we opted for the free (but not really because you give a hefty tip) walking tour.
Dora, a 24-year-old Greek American women, who was also part Iranian and a few other ethnicities, guided 12 of us on a tour that began at the Grand Palace. Having studied acting, her over-exaggerated gestures and loud voice, annoyed me at first, but with time her education as a historian saved her. Her stories brought history to life.
A WALKING TOUR WITH DORA
To begin with, we learned that Brussels is the second most multicultural city in the world. Dubai is first. Belgium is also unusually with distinct areas–French-speaking, Dutch-speaking, German-speaking and Brussels. There are three official languages but 109 languages spoken. Ex-pats, said Dora, are welcomed and feel comfortable.
The tour began at the largest building in the Grand Place Market Square, built in two stages in the 1440s. This two-step process created some deformed structures – uneven arches and an off-center door below the tower, to name a couple. Dora asked us to let our eyes drift down from the top of the tower, 900 meters in the air. The Italians on the tour gasped when their eyes reached the off-kilter door.
GUILDS, KINGS AND THE WATER OF LIFE
The first building built in the square, in the 600s, was the market, which sits across the plaza from the tower. It was constructed when Brussels, Ghent and Antwerp were connected by rivers, and Brussels was the center of commerce. The market, now a city Museum, was surrounded by guild buildings. Streets, radiating from each guild, carried the guild name. Dora was interrupted when bagpipes drowned her voice, and a small group of red-gowned and metal-necklaced men and a couple of women, and bagpipers slowly marched through the square. They were honoring their guild, the meat guild. Other guilds include fish, cheese. The oldest is bread, and the most powerful, beer.
Brussels, initially a city of rivers, was also a city of plagues because the water bred diseases. Then came beer, called “the water of life.”
Eventually the rivers were covered and the market was rebuilt as the King’s Palace. The King never lived actually there but he did have an office inside. Instead, he built his home, three grand buildings, on the other side of the square. Today the King’s Palace is a hotel and offices. The guild buildings are privately-owned homes. The Grand Palace is a favorite spot for weddings.
Next to the beer guild building is a building with a swan above the door. Inside, Karl Marx wrote the Communist manifesto. Across the plaza, Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables and down the street, Che Guevara hid for several months. These great thinkers arrived many years after the French invaded and altered Brussels.
In 1690, Louis XIV destroyed the Grand Market Square because he thought it rivalled Versailles’ greatness, and that was simply not to be allowed. All the buildings were demolished, except the Grand Palace (perhaps the only one that truly rivalled parts of Versailles) and rebuilt them, just the same but with a little bit more, well, a lot more, gold-plating. The first thing you notice upon entering the Plaza is the abundance of gold.
CARTOONS, CHOCOLATE AND FRIES
Just off the square in a narrow, cobbled street, filled with people, many of whom wait to buy or are eating the famous Belgium waffles, is a large mural of Tintin,. Tintin’s creator was a Brussel’s artist, Herge, who was banned from creating more comics after WWII because he collaborated with the Nazi. Brussels artists like to make comics – the Smurfs originated in Brussels and cartoon murals dot the city.
It rains in Brussels about 220 days of the year, and more people than usual were out because of the sun. Our next stop, the most famous Brussel’s icon, Mannekin Pis – a tiny statue of a 600-year old little boy who is peeing. He’s revered because supposedly he peed on a bomb and that saved Brussels.
Waffles and chocolate are also a big deal. The place to find Brussel’s best chocolate is Royal Gallery of St. Hubert, the first covered mall ever built, strictly for royalty and the richest citizens. St. Hubert didn’t open to the general public until as late as the 1960s. The chocolate costs as much as 100 euros a box.
Neuhaus produces one of the most famous chocolates. The first Neuhaus was a pharmacist, and came up with the idea of making medicine more palatable by covering it in chocolate. When his grandson took over the business, he decided to get rid of the medicine and focus only on chocolate.
We left the ornate, elegant covered market and headed to the old Stock Exchange, now with no raison d’etre because of the European Union. Located in the center of Brussel’s most popular local Square, Place de la Bourse, it is now home to travelling exhibitions. Nearby locals had lined up to buy another famous Belgium food, fries.
CATHEDRAL AND KINGS
Legend has it that the St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral was built by a king to commemorate the kindness of a nun who helped the homeless in the city. A fine example of French Gothic architecture (Brabantine Gothic) with its two high towers, a chapel to St. Michael was most likely found there as early as the 9th C. The cathedral was built between the 11th and 16th centuries.
Inside is a 600-year-old painting of the cathedral. Also there are photos of the wedding of King Philippe to his much-beloved, Polish wife, Matilda. Belgian is still a kingdom. The role of Philippe is mainly as a figurehead but he advises the government, made up of seven parliaments in Brussels and a Prime Minister. He is embraced by the people. His daughter, who is now 17, will be the first queen by birthright… ever.
Our tour came to an end in Royal Square, overlooking the city from behind the venerated King Albert I atop his horse. During WWI, the Germans wanted to use Belgian as a backdoor to invade France and promised Albert that if he let them pass through, Germany would not declare war on Belgium. Though Belgium was tiny, Albert said no. Germany declared war on Belgium, at that time a part of the British Empire, thus bringing Britain into the war, and the world war began. Albert himself fought all four years, and put Belgium on the map for its bravery.
