Adventures with KCG: Brussels, Bruxelles, or Brussel (English, French, or Dutch)

Mannekin Pis - The Tiny Guy with a Big Reputation!

This little, and I do mean little, statue is quite the tourist attraction in Brussels. He apparently has many costumes/outfits that he is dressed in for various occasions and they are on display in a museum that I did not actually visit (Limited time-Limited interest).

Well, other than being difficult to spell, Brussels is an interesting place to visit. I was in Brussels last Thursday, it is about 1.5 hours via the fast train from Paris. All the adventuring that I have been doing caught up to me last Wednesday and I caught a cold. I went to bed early to prepare for my Big Belgium Extravaganza!

Central Square or Town Center

Guild Buildings

Alternate View on Town Center

Renard the Fox

Peculiar Gargoyle

I love to look at and photograph gargoyles, I am unsure about the iconography of this one? The town center is a huge open square, around which are lots of restaurants serving Moules (Mussels), Beer (Belgium's favorite beverage), Frites (That's a fancy word for French Fries) and Waffles. I am a fan of all of these culinary delights but I settled for the moules and frites in that it was only lunchtime, and I was sick. There were also gourmet chocolate shops at every turn. I bought a 100 gram dark chocolate sampler and was not dissapointed! It started to rain with determination thus I thought it would be a good time to seek out the museums that I wanted to see.

(I had a beer sampler and waffle at my hostel at dinnertime - you will have to wait for my post on Bruges for my exciting hostel story)

St. Michael

Front Facade of St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral

Exterior Apse

Interior Nave

Incredible Baroque Pulpit, carved wood

Statues and Stained Glass

St. Michael trampling Satan

After the quick transfer to the Central station in Brussels the first point of interest I found on Thursday was the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. (It is most commonly referred to as St. Michael's) This gothic church took over 300 years to construct and replaced several earlier cathedrals of differing styles. The interior was filled with light, in that some of the windows were not the original stained glass and were replaced with clear panes. I spent an extra couple of euro and visited the treasury which was filled with intriguing artifacts and reliquaries. While walking around this beautiful structure someone was tuning the organ, and thus I got to hear a lot of the tones from the various pipes. The really nice gal in charge of the Treasury visit said that if I stayed until about 2pm I would hear each and every pipe. Tempting, but I did have other things on my list in Brussels!

Rene Magritte Museum

This was the really interesting lighting in the welcome area at the Rene Magritte Museum, a relatively new attraction opening in 2009. It is attached to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium, which has two sections, the Beaux-Arts and the Modern Art Museums. I am a big fan of Magritte, so I was thrilled to visit this museum dedicated to his work and it made it easier to accept that the Modern Art area was under renovation and closed. The Beaux-Arts Museum has several works of art that I was very excited to see including the Hieronymous Bosch tryptich The Temptation of St. Anthony and a whole room filled with Brueghel's. The rain continued to pour outside so the museums were a great place to spend time!

Magritte Art as Light fixture