Prior to traveling to Brussels I didn't know much about the city. In all honestly I just knew they had great waffles and a large scope of beers (one place had over 250 kinds). In fact their tourism website uses the slogan, "A food lover's dream. A beer lover's heaven." So I really wasn't that far off. Our main reason for visiting Brussels was a concert we wanted to see and quite honestly, Belgium had pretty cheap airfare from Rome. Belgium sounded like a fun place and we were so pleasantly surprised with the beauty of the city. Although Brussels is the capital and largest urban city of Belgium, the hustle and bustle was fairly mild which was a nice change of pace.
Since our hostel was on a main road it wasn't too hard to navigate to major attractions. One of my favorite characteristics of Bruxelles is the buildings. Since we didn't know much about the main attractions we took to locals to find out what was important to see. At one point we just followed the crowd, a tactic that was definitely learned early on living abroad. We were told that we had to go Grand Place, which is a square with jaw dropping buildings. Every country has vastly different architecture but- this place has golden buildings. Gold. Stepping into the square you're immediately turned in every direction. The buildings are towering over you, leaving shadows of their height on the stone ground. You can smell the fresh flowers and plants being sold in the center, their colors vividly comparing to the grays and golds of the buildings. One of my favorite buildings is the house that was owned by the brewers' guild, which now housing a brewers museum. A pure golden statute sits on the top of the building, as if it guarding one of Belgium's most precious possessions, it's beer.
Unfortunately we missed the famous Flower Carpet that comes in August, something I am incredibly sad about. Those close to me know that flowers are one of my obsessions and if I would have seen the ground covered in them, I would have gone wild. At the end of spring Belgium creates a flower carpet made mostly from their famous flower the Begonias, which covers 77 M by 24 M (250 ft by 79ft for all of us non metric system-ers). This massive display is laid out like a carpet smack in the middle of Grand Place. The event only last for four days but what an amazing thing to see.
Another funny aspect of Belgium is the story behind the peeing boy. You can imagine our confusion when everywhere we looked we saw statues of a naked peeing boy. Finally we asked a convenience store clerk, uh sir...what is the significance of this baby peeing? After getting a sort of confusing answer we asked a few more people and heard different stories but the bottom line is this: The "Manneken Pis" is a famous Brussels bronze sculpture of a boy urinating into a fountain below. The legend we heard the most says that in the 14th century when Brussels was under siege by foreigners the attackers made a plan to use explosives at the city walls. A little boy, Julianske was spying on them and last minute urinated on the burning fuse, saving the city from destruction. Needless to say, I came home with a peeing boy miniature statue.
Although we spent much time in local breweries and consuming waffles with a variety of topping, I couldn't help but notice the upbeat and lightheartedness of the Belgium people. Their culture is welcoming and all around beautiful. This city is important, it hold's an UNESCO World Heritage Site but also it's important because even though it's not hugely famous it's these kinds of cities that remind me every place has something tremendously impacting to offer. So even though you might not know what you're going to do in a city, just follow the locals.
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