Brussels day 4

Day 4 in Brussels

We walked for about 5 minutes down to the tram stop just beside the stadium we had stayed next to when we first arrived at Brupark, and caught the yellow and blue tram into the centre of Brussels.  It was about 20 minutes I guess, interesting insight into the locals, both inside and outside the tram.

We alighted at a stop about 5 minutes’ walk from the Grand Place, followed our map and memory to get to McD’s to do a little internet work. From here we walked to the Grand Place looked at the buildings again (they really are impressive, ornate, covered in figures and gold, lace work almost on some of the turrets…..), and then went to the City Museum, which housed a display about the building through the ages, as well as a history of the city. Its major attraction to us though was its display of 708 outfits that heads of state and organisations have donated to the Manneken Pis (remember, the boy who does wee in the street, and who is naked!!). They only have 50 outfits on display at a time, but there are a few others in display drawers which you can pull out to see through the glass tops. They have a committee of men (I think about 5) who are dedicated to the Manneken Pis and his outfits, they decide which outfit the statue will wear for special celebrations amongst other quandaries of national importance (to do with the Manneken). I guess that’s a good use of publically funded staff. Anyway, the display was cool, all sorts of outfits from different countries, representatives from the “services”,  a pilot from Belgian Air…. You name it, but I don’t think one from NZ. I must talk to John Key about that. Hilary bought a pack of playing cards with 54 Manneken models in different outfits which she now uses to beat her mother at 500, which they play as often as Hilary can convince Di to.

From here we headed towards the cartoon strip museum which Hilary was very keen to visit. On our way we were stopped by a young woman who was giving away tickets for “a drink” at an exhibition of “things Belgian”, so we went in there. We didn’t end up getting the drink because you had to pay a 7 euro entrance fee, but we did go up to the shop/café which displayed chocolates (free tasting of orange and dark chocolate sticks), and other Belgian wares, such as jewellery. We also, on entering the corridor to the exhibition were each given a pretty little red box with two Belgian chocolates in, exquisite…. So we devoured those as we wandered the streets. Our walk took us through a large “Gallery” a covered and lavishly lit and decorated long hall with arched roof and expensive/exclusive shops on either side. One of the shops was that of the chocolatier from whom we had the chocolate samples. We saw our chocolates (well not the actual ones obviously, they were well gone) in the window, I can’t remember how the pricing went, but we worked out that we had eaten nearly €15 of chocolates between us in a minute (or two)!!

The building which housed the comic strip museum “Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee” is  Art Nouveau style (Art Deco we would say), built between 1903 and 1906,and designed by the Belgian architect Victor Horta. It is quite splendid. As the DK book says, “This unique museum pays tribute to the Belgian passion for comic strips…,and to world-famous comic strip artists from Belgium and abroad.”  Of particular focus are Tintin and the Smurfs. There are also pictorial explanations about how cartoons are put together as a strip, as well as life sized cartoon sets, and models of some of the characters. We had fun reading and posing for the camera.

From here we were going to go to the Botanique Jardins but just as we reached there it started to rain, so instead we detoured to our tram stop (which was very close thankfully) and caught the packed tram back to Bruparc and the truck.

We decided to get a start on our journey to Brugge as I didn’t want to tackle it in the morning with all the commuter traffic, and wasn’t sure how straight forward it would be and knew I’d just worry about it all night anyway. So we made a very straight forward trip along the very well sign-posted route to Brugge. The only issue was the incredible rain storm we drove in. I had noticed on our trip into Brussels, periodic signs for “aquaplanage” , and this downpour explained why. The speed limit on these motorways is 130kms or 110 if wet. Thankfully all the drivers were sensible and we all went along at about 70-80, because at times we were close to aquaplaning, especially when near a big truck that was spurting out torrents of water from its multiple wheels.

We found our way quite successfully to St Kruis which is almost a suburb of Brugge, where we knew from our map, there should be a camping ground. It wasn’t obvious so we stopped at McDs to try to find a website, unfortunately we couldn’t get onto the internet, not sure of the problem, but instead Di went and talked to a man at a camping equipment/outdoorsy clothing shop next door while I went to a Belgian supermarket to stock up on a few essentials like milk. It turned out the camping ground was only a couple of hundred metres from where we were parked, so that was easy.

It wasn’t the best campsite we have been to. It was expensive for what was provided, a very small area to park in, no more than a supermarket park sized piece of grass, with no extra space between. Usually there are a good six feet either side of spots so you have some privacy. The toilets didn’t provide toilet paper, and they were closed for cleaning at 9 o’clock in the morning, one of the busiest times. We didn’t actually use the showers or toilets, not needing to, and because they were so distant from where we were parked. It was €29 a night which is the most we have paid yet, and quite a lot of money for a few kW of power and some water and a small patch of grass for the night. Nevermind, there aren’t any other campsites in the area so I guess they can charge what they want. It was very convenient for getting into the town of Brugge however, by either bus or foot.