Brussels Escorts

BRUSSELS TRAVEL GUIDE

If you ask an old Bruxellois what makes him happy, the answer is likely to be:
"My favourite beer, a plate of frites, a Bruegel painting and the dream that a rich Fleming will marry my daughter."

The "Capital of Europe" is where good food and good beer are considered the elixir for a long life. Here north and south, the Teuton and the Latin repre­sented by the Dutch-speaking Fleming and the French-speaking Walloon, have been fused by hook and by crook into the Bruxellois - Europe's first urban hybrid. As befits a bilingual city, the children of Brussels attend Flemish or French speaking schools, according to the national grouping of their parents, and street and public signs are in French . and Flemish (a dialect of Dutch).
Brussels is full of contrasts. Since the law prohibits the construction of two identical houses next to each other, it is not unusual to see office blocks in ti nted glass squatting beside the spires of Gothic churches. Flemish baroque fa­cades on the Grand Place recall old glories while futuristic glass "green­houses", occupied by insurance compa­nies or banks, line A venue de Franklin Roosevelt. Together with the European Community Headquarters at Rond-Point Schuman, built in the shape of a four­pointed star, these buildings represent the more modem face of the city.

The city is also a capital of Art Nou­veau Cl ugendstil in German) whose lead­ing local exponent was Victor Horta (1861-1947). Expressive and decora­tive buildings in that style have sur­vived, wedged between shabby tene­ment blocks and utilitarian cement monoliths. Brussels bristles with muse­ums such a the Musee des Beaux Arts (Fine Arts Museum), Musee Instru­mental (the later the populace rioted when French soldiers also tried to remove the statue. On this occasion Louis XV quickly ap­peased the outraged city by donating a sumptuous costume to "The Boy".

Now, with more than 160 donated costumes, including those of foreign legionnaire, Highland dancer, Sioux Indian, Texan cowboy, samurai, mahara­jah, Canadian hockeyplayer and fisher­man of Newfoundland, Manneken Pis is probably the world's best-dressed statuette. Legend claims he represents Duke Godfrey Ill. In 1142, when only a few months old, the baby duke was brought to the battlefield at Ransbeke and his cradle was hung from an oak to encourage the soldiers, dejected by his father's death. At the decisive moment, when his forces were about to retreat, the young duke rose in his cradle and made the gesture reproduced later at the fountain. This, so legend goes, encour­aged his troops to victory. However, a rival legend maintains that the statuette commemorates the little boy whose ac­tion inadvertently extinguished a time bomb intended to blow up the Town Hall. Whatever the truth, Manneken Pis is the oldest and most honoured bour­geois of Brussels.

Sobriety and pleasure: In this city of merchants and traders, it has been for centuries a sign of good breeding, good taste and good fortune to buy an expen­sive item of art and place it, properly spotlit, in a prominent part of the home - for everyone to see.

If the city's art is not merely for con­sumption then the beer is. In Brussels the shape of the beer glass changes to suit each of the 400 brews available in Anglicised pubs. Belgians are among the world's top beer guzzlers, not a surprise if one knows that a 1919 law prohibited the sale of spirits in public places. Spirits had to be consumed in a cercle prive (private club). These are often elegant and hushed places and quite accessible to "properly attired"
tourists.        

Perched atop the slender Town Hall spire, belligerentSaintMichael watches over Brussels. He reminds the visitor that the city is solidly Catholic and bour­geois, whose citizens respect law and order and attend mass on Sunday morn­ing yet are liberal enough to enjoy an evening stroll down Boulevard Jacq­main past scantily dressed ladies beck­oning from behind large windows.

With more than 1,400 so-called "Tem­ples of Gastronomy" and countless bis­tros, snack bars, pull-ups and cafes, the choice of a restaurant, like the choice of a beer, can be a headache. Strolling through the picturesque Ilot Sacre, one finds that this central pedestrian zone is almost exclusively made up of restau­rants, each seemingly more inviting than the next. The food displayed in win­dows and on tables lining the pave­ments is so appetizing it makes one's mouth water. Crabs, shrimps, mussels, shellfish, sea urchins, squid and cuttle­fish are laid out for inspection on ice and framed with lemons and parsley. Once . inside, the flame of an open fireplace in winter, or a cool fan in summer, pro­vides a welcome. No wonder eating and drinking has become a daily social event for most of the 1 million Bruxellois and their guests.

Administrative capital: Perhaps itis this joie de vivre, this eat-drink-and-be­merry attitude which has attracted so many foreigners to Brussels. The city is the seat of the General Secretariat of the Benelux Nations, the Commission of the European Community (EC) and the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The European Parliament holdS sessions in the Espace Leopold, Brussels plays host to 20,000 diplomats and 15,000 EC bureaucrats. It embraces around 200 embassies and the offices of 800 multi-national compa­nies from around the world. Entire resi­dential communities speak English. Around the EC headquarters are scores of pubs where only English is spoken. In this polyglot city, English has effec­tively become the third language.

marshes) in a chronicle of Emperor Otto I. It flourished as a trading centre along the route from Bruges to Cologne and became politically important when Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy made it his capital in the 15th century.
Shortly after, Charles V turned it into the capital of the Spanish Low Coun­tries, later-to be dominated by the Aus­trians, the French and the Dutch. The independence movement of 1830 against the Dutch finally gave the country its own identity.

With the progress of parliamentary democracy, the Belgian monarchy to­day plays a representative and ceremonial role, along the lines of their English cousins, though far less aloof. In May at the royal residence in Laeken, the glass­houses filled with exotic plants are opened to the public. Royal business is conducted from the Palace, opposite the huge Pare de Bruxelles, which lies between the King and Parliament. The subject-King rela­tionship is informal. The Bruxellois would hardly tolerate royalty any other way. They will tell with pride that the king dislikes curtseys, does not want to be addressed with inflated titles and will talk to anyone. As a young man, when he drovefast sports cars, the king invari­ably picked up hitchhikers.

The heart of Brussels is the Grand Place. Belgians call it the most beauti­ful square in the world and many visi­tors agree. Here, every day except Mon­day, a flower market is held and once a year the square is carpeted with flowers. Brussels' markets are famous and eve­rything can be found on their stalls, from the local lace to caged birds.
Seven alleys lead into the Grand Place and a spectacle of lavishly decorated Flemish-Baroque Guild Houses. Dat­ing from between 1695 and 1699 the facades appear to have been stamped from the same mould. Each one is dif­ferent, however, yet combines in an overall harmonic effect.

Dominating the Square is the Hotel de Ville (Town Hall) with a 15th-cen­tury Gothic spire. It climbs into the sky like the minaret of a mosque, Inside, fine tapestries decorate the walls. Opposite the Town Hall is the Maison du Roi (King's House), though no king ever lived there. It was used as a prison for those condemned to death. Today it is a museum housing the various uni­forms presented to the Manneken Pis, the soul of Brussels. Behind the King's House begins Ilot Sacre, the labyrinth of six alleys and arcades dotted with pubs, boutiques and restaurants.

Going down the Rue au Beurre from the Grand Place one runs into the Bourse, the city's Stock Exchange, a neo-classic building dating from 1873. Here the business heart of Brussels throbs.

For art lovers, the city has grouped together some of its best museums and galleries on Mont des Arts, just a short distance from the central park. At the park's southern end is the Royal Pal­ace, builtin 1820, almost a century after an earlier royal household burned down.

The new palace, which replaced the former castle of the Dukes of Br ab ant, is modelled in the French style of the Louis XVI period; Behind the building stands a statue of King LeopoldII (1835-1909). South from Mont des Arts, along Rue de la Regence, is the Palais de Justice (Law COUl1) built on the site of the former city gibbet. Its bulging cupola is 337 feet (103 metres) high and the courts occupy an area bigger than Saint Peter's Square in Rome.

Having ambled through parks, alleys and museums, the visitor can recuperate at the ancient fish market around the Church of Saint Catherine north of the city centre. An oblong area by the church was once a canal, along which fishing boats sailed to market. Today the site is ringed by seafood restaurants whose reputation is said to be unsur­passed in Europe.

For those who dine at one of these re taurants, it might be an idea, while digesting the sumptuous dinner, to stroll along past the shop windows of Place Brouckere nearby. The bawdy might like to take one last peep into the adjoin­ing Boulevard Jacqmain for a different ki nd of window shopping. Brussels, the old merchant city, offers the gourmet every satisfaction.