Amsterdam, Haarlem, Brussels, Bruges
June, 2009

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©2010 James Teitelbaum.  All rights reserved.

Persistent prologue: I write these travelogues for myself, so that twenty years from now, I will be able to remember as much about these trips as possible.  I include as much detail as I can cram in, so as to get it all fixed in writing before the memories fade.  I share these with friends, family, and any complete strangers who find them, because people express interest.  I know that these writings do ramble on a bit, but I do not require an editor; these writings are here as aids to my own memory, not as attempts at serious travel writing -- although anecdotes from these journals have formed the core of my more formalized and proper travel writings, which have appeared in print and on the web elsewhere.


Grand Place area, Brussels

Sunday, June 14th

In stark contrast to last night’s activities, we spent today on a small day-trip to the quaint little town of Haarlem. It took less than twenty minutes by train (at a cost of €6.70 round trip each) to get there. Don’t get off at the Ikea: the center of Haarlem is one stop further down the line. The Ikea, however, might be bigger than Haarlem. And Ikea (if nothing else) was open on Sunday. We munched our brunch on the train: small rolls, bananas, gouda, delicious orange-raspberry juice, a pastry called an appelpunt (as opposed to the appelflop of a few days prior), plus lots and lots of water (all for €13.85 at the grocery store).

Something that I noticed in Amsterdam was that half the town seemed to be under renovation. In addition to the two main art museums, many of the homes and commercial buildings were being fixed up. This is something that I like about Europe; they have respect for their history and for the subtleties that make all of the various cultures (all crammed so closely together) different from one another. So when some building erected in 1407 or 1658 or 1871 starts to show its age, they fix it up, rather than tearing it down and putting up something soulless and cheap, as is usually the case in America. Not that there were many buildings built in 1407 here in the States, but even modernist classics and art deco masterpieces are shamelessly bulldozed, insuring that we will never have a solid architectural heritage as seen in Europe.

   
Haarlem station.

Haarlem, like Amsterdam, was in a state of full-on fixin’. It is as if someone in Brussels, at European Union headquarters, said: “okay, what country is up for renovation this year? Oh, the Netherlands. Good. Let’s just renovate the whole damned country at once and get it over with. Next year, we’ll give a fresh coat of paint to Sweden, but it’s The Netherlands’ turn in 2009”. The train station in Haarlem was said to be amazing, and it was indeed lovely. Maybe not amazing, but definitely worth exploring. I had read that most of the shops in town would be closed on a Sunday, and this proved to be true. What I didn’t cognate until I got there, however, was that this meant that 90% of the town was closed. What you can read into this statement is that 90% of the town is shops. What sort of town exists to cater to tourists, but then spends half of the weekend closed? We did see a marching band in the town square. A parade. A freakin’ parade. I cannot leave my house without running across parades. See my Spain, France, Japan, and Cuba travelogues for more! Rebecca, who holds a degree in classical music performance, wanted to see the Grotekerk (Great Church), a Gothic cathedral where Mozart played. It is steps away from the town square, but it was closed. This illustrates exactly how thoroughly closed Haarlem is on a Sunday: the church is even closed. On a Sunday. Whatever. While here in Haarlem, I wanted to see the Frans Hals museum, which was actually open today (€10 for me, €5 for the erstwhile student). The Frans Hals Museum (or the Museum of the Golden Age), was originally built in 1607 to 1610 as an alms house for old men, probably by architect Pieter Van Campen. In order to be considered for residence, men had to be at least sixty years old, single, had to be a resident of Haarlem, and had to have “lead an honest life”. The men had to bring their own furnishings, were not allowed to quarrel at the dinner table, and were not allowed to take more than one jug of beer to their rooms. The main gate is part of the original structure. It was used as an orphanage from 1810 to 1908, and has housed the museum since 1913. Around 1590, very close to the original building date of this repurposed edifice, Haarlem became the nexus of a new painting style called Mannerism, recognized for masterfully painted figures often seen in uncomfortable-looking poses. Among the many, many fantastically talented artists that Northern Europe produced during the 1600s and 1700s, Hals is perhaps less well known on this side of the Atlantic than Rembrandt, Vermeer, or members of the Brueghel family. Noted primarily for his Mannerist portraits, he is considered one of the greats within his homeland. The Hals museum contains many examples of the master’s work (usually huge portraits of groups of important people), and lots of work by his contemporaries. The museum begins with some displays on Dutch history, and Haarlem history in particular. Like the Tropenmuseum, this exhibit focuses on former glory, detailing the advances achieved by the Dutch in their golden age, the 1600s and 1700s.

And then, to the art.

My detailed notes are here.

In brief:

Temptation of St. Anthony by Jan Mandijn (1500-1558 or 1559). This is a very cool painting evocative of Bosch, showing all manner of crazy demons.

Cornelius Van Harle: three very large and very impressive mythology paintings.

Three large paintings of mythological heroes (Hercules, Mercury, and Minerva) by Hendrick Goltuzius.

Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, Compsition with Monkeys (1665).

The main event: a large gallery with five gigantic paintings by Hals. All life-sized or larger groups of wealthy Dutch men posing proudly. There is also one similar image with some older women, and four solo portraits.
The Hall of Hals.
The motherlode for Halsophiles.
I can respect this man’s work, both as a master craftsman and as a (perhaps unwitting) important historian, but I am not thinking of myself as a huge fan. Portrait artists, no matter how talented they may be, don’t usually move me much; they’re more like skilled laborers than someone pouring their heart out onto canvas.
The (George and Ilone) Kremer Collection rounded out the galleries.  The Kremers collected old masters and are now showing their collection to the public at the Hals Museum. A video documentary filled me in on the Kremers' backgournd, and right after watching it,  I was surprised to spot the couple in person in the gift shop. Turns out their collection is going back home with them after today. Glad I got to see it. After their collection vacates the galleries, a portion of the Hals Museum’s permanent collection - currently on loan to a museum in Germany - will return.  As much as I liked the Kremer collection, it seems as though it is impossible to find a fully intact museum collection in this country.

We relaxed in the pleasant central garden of the museum and talked about the weather, which has been far nicer than the forecasts had predicted. This morning was a little drizzly, but it was nice out by mid afternoon, sunny and blue skies.
We contemplated the inordinately large number of crippled people in Holland: crutches, wheelchairs, scooters. Many more than one normally sees.
Along with the buildings, they need to structurally restore all of the people here.

On the way out, some lady was trying to get people interested in a slick art magazine. The mag was entirely in Dutch, of course. She handed me free copies of three issues and started talking to me in Dutch, really fast, and not letting me get a word in. The main thing that I wanted to convey to her was that I didn’t understand a word she was saying to me. But I couldn’t interrupt her. So I let her go for like five solid minutes, seriously, just nodding and smiling, and hoping she didn’t ask me a question. On the way home from Europe, I perused the magazines on the plane; I couldn’t read the articles, but there were some purdy pictures within.

We skipped the Teylers Museum (one museum a day is enough - provided we can find one that isn’t being renovated), and made for our next stop: an old wooden windmill built in 1778 by Adriaan de Boos. A fire destroyed it in 1932, but 70 years later it was restored and opened as a museum.
We sat on a bench across the canal from it, and watched it lazily spin.
Hiking across a bridge to see it up close, we were denied entry to the mill due to the presence of a private party for someone’s 60th birthday.

Wandering around looking for dinner, we discovered a charming little Italian place, Ristorante Pizzeria La Sardenia (“Vera Cucina Italiana” - True Italian Kitchen). For €25, we had a crock pot full of salmon lasagna, an ultra-thin pizza with wide thin slivers of salami on it, a mediocre little salad, and two little 6-ounce glasses of water (for which we paid €3.50). The entrees were both very good, but charging us for two bottles of water, and then actually giving us the divided contents of one bottle was kind of lame. I wonder if this scheme was masterminded by the cute and friendly teenage waitress, or her tourist-sniffing boss?

A little scoop of pistacio ice cream elsewhere cost €1.

Back in Amsterdam, we went for a drink at Deugniet, a bar near the hotel.
The RLD is chock full o’ bars, so we picked a random one that looked quiet. There were maybe two or three middle-aged people in the small place, and they left soon after we arrived. The music was low, and we enjoyed a single quiet Sunday night drink, in contrast to the previous night’s bacchanalia. Rebecca got a Bols jenever, served in a ceramic decanter, I had a pilsner (€5.90 total).
Suddenly, and without warning, about a dozen kids burst into the door, all carrying full mugs of beer, sloshing it and spilling it as they bounded energetically into the room. As soon as they invaded the small pub, the music was turned up to eleven. The kids seemed to know the owners (a woman and her daughter working the bar), and some of the kids went back behind the bar to pour their own beers. They were yelling, singing, dancing, moving the furniture around, and throwing a real raucous party. They ran in and out of the bar to fetch their pals.
It was madness, precisely as if a hurricane had just blown into the room.

Their favorite song came on the radio, and they turned it up even louder. The tune was a bouncy little major-key technopop number with a sweet sounding young girl unironically intoning the words “Fuck You”, over and over, as the chorus. I think it might have been Lilly Allen. Over and over... “Fuck You” in a happy little girly voice to a relentless electronic teenybopper beat. The title of the tune more or less summed up our new feelings towards a place that we had been moderately enjoying; we bailed.

Upon reflection, these kids were either working for the bars in the area, being called in to make a place seem like it was jumping, hopefully luring in their peers to spend a few Euros. Or, maybe one of the kids was the owner’s son or daughter and had free reign over the place. Mind you, we were the only two people in the place when these kids invaded. Nonetheless, after we left, one of the kids was on the street, and he pulled us aside to tell us that there was a great party in this bar; he apparently didn’t realize that we had just left. Then another kid (who also didn’t recognize Rebecca and me as collectively having, until recently, made up 100% of the patronage of the place they had just stormed) also tried to lure us inside.

No dice, kiddo.

Monday, June 15th

Up at 9:00 a.m., and aboard the 9:54 train to Brussels with no problem. Nice having the train station a ten minute (if that) walk from the hotel. Breakfast on the train: cheese, bananas, kiwi-orange juice, and more of the brown bread and peanut butter that we’d bought for the room a few days earlier. No one checked our passports at any time during the three hour journey; traveling between these European nations is now no different than travel between U.S. states. But after less than three hours by train, we were already clearly in a different country: the architecture is notably different, and the people here are now speaking French instead of Dutch or English. The canals and gables and hoists are gone. The train station we arrived at - South Station - is kind of grimy and smells like urine. Outside, we spied a lot of shady characters, but also a huge mural depicting a few dozen of Belgium’s celebrated comics characters. Our first impression of Brussels was that it is more or less like a bad neighborhood in Paris. Fortunately, our opinion changed, and definitely for the better. However, we joked that Belgium is to France what Canada is to the U.S.: that sleepy second-rate country just to the north where they speak multiple languages, live in the shadow of the great nation below them, and content themselves in never being anyone’s first choice for a vacation. This is grossly unfair to both Belgium and Canada, both of which are actually lovely countries, but there is some truth to the statement. As it turns out, given time, both Rebecca and I grew to prefer Belgium to The Netherlands. Brussels is a far more interesting city than Amsterdam, in spite of there being fewer bikes, and more cars. Fewer stylish people, and more Muslims. As we made our way to the hotel on foot, the sky was grey and it threatened rain. Serious rain. Windsor Hotel Brussels (13 Place Rouppeplaats) set us back €160 for three nights (about $78 per night). I’d had to pay a small deposit on-line when I booked it, and they asked for the balance of the payment (€148.25) upon check-in. We were on the fourth floor, and were just barely able to cram into the phone-booth sized elevator which trembled and shook as it crawled up to the top floor. The hotel was a little run down, but for the equivalent of $78 per night, it was about the same quality and size of the Luxer in Amsterdam ($50 more per night, if you recall). It was quiet, secure, and fine. But just barely so. The southern end of Brussels is a heavily Islamic neighborhood, and not a particularly welcoming one at that. The hotel is just a block or two from where this area begins. The immediate area of the hotel, and everything to the north of it seemed fine, but Rebecca felt quite uncomfortable with all of the men staring at her whenever we had to walk south. Fortunately, most of our activities were to the north. But that said, there is an extremely upscale restaurant across the circle from the hotel, which seems incongruous with the otherwise unimpressive neighborhood we found ourselves in.  (That's our window view below and to the right).

By now it was raining fairly heavily. The forecast had predicted rain all week, but we’d been lucky so far. It had been chilly but mild in Amsterdam.
We took a subway train to the first of our local destinations, the Atomium, a building at the very northern edge of Brussels.  This part of Brussels is the area where the world’s fair was held in 1958.  Regarding the Brussels subways, I had read: “More than sixty works of art decorate the stations, making the network the country's largest art gallery for all genres: paintings, sculptures, photos, stained glass. Famous artists such as Delvaux, Folon, and Hergé have contributed works”.

By the time we got there it was pouring rain, and even with our umbrellas, we were a little soggy by the time we got inside.   Atomium set us back €9 for me, and €6 for the grad student, who spent these savings on various pay toilets all week.

The Atomium is a striking building made of nine silver spheres, each over two stories tall, connected by tubes, making it look like a massive atom.

Considering the era in which it was built - the atomic age, as the fifties are sometimes called - it remains one of Europe’s strongest mid-century modern architectural statements.
Five of the spheres can be visited via escalators between them: the base sphere (Henri Storck sphere) has a permanent exhibition dedicated to the fifties: "Expo 58: The Exhibition". The sphere named after the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers contains temporary exhibitions. The central sphere — the Waterkeyn sphere - has a snack bar. Another has a kids play area. On a nice day, the top sphere affords a swell view of Brussels, probably, but all we could see was the small amusement area next door, which contains miniature versions of famous world landmarks. The expansive park next beyond lil’ Europe seemed like it might be lovely on a less grey day. 

       

I was on board for my visit to the Atomium right away, as soon as I saw the original George Nelson “marshmallow” sofa in the lobby (the variant with the multi-colored cushions), and the intact mid-century modern design of the ground floor.
We headed up an escalator to the first of the spheres, where we learned that the 1958 World’s Fair fair hosted 42 million visitors, and was the first major European expo after World War II. Only 10 percent of the visitors went to the modern art exhibition within the fair. The biggest day was July 21, on which over 713,664 people visited. During the fair, 31,000 people became sick, 2000 children were lost (and presumably found), 27 people tried to kill themselves (no stats on how many succeeded), 280 women were hired as hostesses, 8 babies were born, and on one particular day, a record 52,000 pints of beer were consumed. The oldest visitor was 105.

A model of the Arrow of Civil Engineering - which was another big architectural marvel at the World’s Fair - is cracking along a stress point. One can only wonder what happened to the actual building.
Note that it is now gone.
Models of the now-demolished Congolese Garden (remember that Belgium once occupied the Congo) and Pavilion of Urban Development are further amazing examples of mid-century modern architecture. It was interesting to read that Belgium seems no more ashamed of having colonized Rwanda-Urundi and Congo than The Netherlands were of their own conquests. A display of brochures and other memorabilia show off the “ground hostesses”, a brigade of stylishly uniformed stewardess-type greeters.
“Disciplined yet coquettish, they represent the image of women in the 1950s”.

       

Belgium is known for beer, waffles, mussles with fries, and chocolate, all of which we were to enjoy in the coming days.
It is also known for comics, however.
Not the adult stories as seen in Japanese manga, or the thin hardcover “albums” popular in France and Italy, or even the modern American graphic novels. No, Belgium is known for straight-up kids comic strips. This country has an appreciation for the marriage of illustrations and words, but they don’t generally go for either the U.S.-style hero comics, nor the heavier and more adult stories found in other parts of Europe. People of all ages in Belgium do enjoy comics, but funny little cartoon strips are the preferred take on this art form. It is appropriate, then, that a dozen famous European cartoonists have all created large-format works (several feet wide) featuring the Atomium. These were on display in the Broodthaers sphere’s art gallery when we visited. A further dozen European artists working in more mature comics styles (i.e. the French/Italian style) contributed works as well. One of my favorite French album illustrators is Phillipe Berthet, so I was pleased to see a piece by him featuring a girl on a Vespa admiring the Atomium. I also liked works by Ted Benoit (21st Century Atomic Girls - two girls in a modernist house looking over a landscape of mesas), Andre Juillard (Paris-Brussels - girl sleeps on her couch, oblivious to the photo of the Atomium on the wall), Dupuin (Berberian - mid-century 1950s movie poster design), Frank Pe (the least cartoony of the bunch, almost like a Metal Hurlant cover: a caveman holds kitsch souvenirs of the Atomium and the Arrow as the real buildings lay in ruins behind him), Jaques de Loustal (Belgian Congo pavilion, straight up rendering, the least narrative or least stylized of the lot), Vittorio Giardino (guy riding a bike through a traditional Belgian village with ultramodern Atomium in background).

This gallery was followed by an extensive historical exhibit of the “Atom Style” or “New Clear Line” style of comics, extablished in the 1950s.  The style was named b Joost Wsarte, but was founded by Andre Franquin who is said to have influenced most of the contributors to the exhibition.  Other guys to look into are Yves Chaland and Serge Clerc (early Metal Hurlant contributors), Ted Benoit (founder of modern clear line renaissance), Antonio Lapone (Italian illustrator with eye for glamour and all things 1950s; since 2002, with Pierre Vanloffelt: A.D.A. - Antique Detective Agency), Paul Rivoche (used as an example of clear-line style).

By 4:20 p.m., we were done with the Atomium, and decided that with the rain subsiding, we’d head to central Brussels and see as much of our mapped walking tour as the shaky weather would allow, with a special emphasis on chocolat, moules et frites, beir, and Leige waffles. We figured that we’d better learn those key words in the local language, because there is a lot less English spoken or printed here than there is in Holland.

Brussels is a beautiful city with some amazing architecture and great public works. With the exception of the corridor between the southern train station and the hotel, I was surprised and impressed with this city. Our walking tour began in the center of the city, with a statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Someone put a red clown nose on the metal statue of Sancho. Close to that is another statue, a very grim-looking rendition of composer Bela Bartok. His music isn’t especially joyful, but perhaps the reason that this analog of Bartok looks so depressed is that he is covered with bird shit... and maybe also because someone drew a big cock on his overcoat.

Not far from there is Galleries Royal St. Hubert, which is basically a beautiful 19th century mall. I have no use for shopping malls at home, and in fact I probably enter one once a year or so at the most, but we were at St. Hubert simply to admire its beauty. It was nice to look at. There is a fantastic book store in there, called Librarie St. Hubert / Gallerie de Roi, which Rebecca had to tear me away from with some persistence.
She soon got her revenge however, for steps away, the choco-obsessed International Rebecca got her first Belgian cocoa fix: a truffle of Manon Noir (€1) from Neuhaus, one of the many chocolatiers in this country.
Near there, up on an arch, is a big compass in the position where a clock might usually be found.
Why is there a compass on the wall in a mall?
Is this building going to move?
Is the compass needle permanently fixed in one place?
It is southeast o’clock.
Does this ever change?

Also spotted a giant Ingmar Bergman movie boxed set: €189 for 33 films and two documentaries. All the important ones, and then some. Totally worth it - especially if they’re good Criterion-style restorations. This set would never even be released in America. You have to pay Criterion like $40 per movie for this stuff.

Galleries Royal St. Hubert is actually built in two sections: one must exit, cross a small street, and then reenter to peruse the second half. This small divisive street is Rue de Bouchers (nearest I can translate is: Road of Corks), and is a narrow alley filled with dozens of restaurants. Nearly all of them have white tablecloths and candles on the tables, and waiters in vests and bow ties out front, trying to lure the tourists in with prixe fixe meals (which for the most part are actually priced fairly reasonably at €12 to €18).

One of these places was actually on my list of things to see and do in Brussels: Aux Armes de Bruxelles. “This 80-year-old restaurant has some of the freshest buckets of mussels, complete with French fries and mayonnaise. Real Bruxellois eat the first mussel with their fingers, and use the empty shell as a utensil for scooping up the rest.” We walked by, and the art deco interior looked great - but the posted menu indicated what ended up being the highest prices on the entire street.

   
Grand Place area, Brussels

It was too early for dinner, so we continued our “Grand Place” walking tour, in steadily improving weather.  (That's the French pronounciation of "place", by the way, like "plahss", similar in usage to the Italian "plaza").  The next stop was the Grand Place itself, and grand it is. Small and ancient streets open up into a large cobblestone square with fantastic gothic buildings on every side.
The Place is crammed with tourists all bumping into each other because they’re gawking and taking photos instead of looking where they are going.
We joined their ranks. 

   
Grand Place area, Brussels

After walking by the impressive stock exchange building near the Grand Place, we decided: "this is Belgium - time for beer".

My notes indicated a nearby art deco jazz bar where Miles David used to jam. Sounded good to me, until we got there to discover that the tiny place had been renovated and stripped of all deco-ness, and there was no music scheduled until many hours later. We had no reason to stay, and we eventually wandered into the more inviting-looking Falstaff (19 rue Henri Maus). Falstaff was built as a pair of adjoined houses in 1886 by one Baron Hallard. In 1903 it was converted into a wine bar with the help of some of Victor Horta’s people. We’ll be hearing a lot more about Horta soon. The bar was named Falstaff (after the jovial character in Henry the Fifth) in 1909. It was classified as a historical monument in October, 2000.
The couple next to us were eating some food that looked good as hell - but way too expensive.
I got a Chimay Bleu 90 (€4.80), and International Rebecca got a Kriek (25cl small bottle for €3.50). My beer was probably $7+ after the exchange rate, but it still felt like a bargain: Chimay goes for $10 to $12 in most big U.S. cities.
Hell yeah.
Awesome Belgian beer cheap (sorta) in Belgium.
Bring it.

We pondered: what’s the deal with booze and monks?
Beer.
Benedictine.
Chartreuse.
They can’t talk, but they can drink. Most people talk more when they drink.
Rebecca: “What does ‘Trappist’ mean”?
James: “It means they catch their own food”.
We liked the 19th century ambience here, until a Cher hit from a decade ago came over the sound system.
We go.

We were lured into to further brewed adventures via our accidental discovery of a cozy and invisible pub down a narrow cobblestoned alleyway. Even with my semi-legendary navigation skills and the sixth sense that I have for feeling my way around places I have never been before, I think I’d have trouble finding this tavern again. Their glossy business card labeled the place as Au Bon Vieux Temps (“In Good Old Time”, literally, but I guess the gist of it is “The Good Old Days”?), but you wouldn’t know that it was called that from the sign outside, because there isn’t one.
It’s at Impasse Saint Nicolas 4 (er, “impasse” is “Dead End”, so: #4 Santa Claus Dead End...?).

This ended up being our favorite bar in Brussels. The building was erected in 1695, and the ground floor became a bar in 1922, although the tap room felt (in a very good way) as though it had been in service since 1695 as well. We chatted a little with the friendly young barmaid and her chain smoking elderly cocktail waitress, who was about four feet tall, and about 90 years old. Rebecca loved her blue eyeshadow.  We made friends with two loud British guys who were convinced that Rebecca and I were Canadian. Truth be told, we encouraged their mistaken appraisal, and were treated better than if they'd pegged us as Yanks.  This is often true in Europe. 

We ordered a Bourgogne des Flandres and one of my old favorites, a Corsendonk, and then we split a Westmalle Trappist, all for €11. The barmaid was trying to ask me how to say “I’d like the bill please” in English. She was being friendly and trying to learn some English, but I had no damned idea what she was asking me.

Back on the street, we heard people playing Metallica songs on acoustic guitars, singing them in English-accented Spanish. Another guy was playing hammer dulcimer on the street corner, and when he saw me watching him, he started playing double-time, clearly glad for the interest. Within earshot of these players, we got a street food Leige waffle for €1.70. It was tasty. Having now consumed beer, waffles, and chocolate, it was clearly time for moule et frites (mussles and fries).

But first, one more aperitif and a piss:

My map showed that one of the more whimsical landmarks in Belgium, the Manneken Pis, was nearby.
We walked over and were bemused to see a big crowd clustered around a tiny statue in an alcove next to an old building. This thing is like 18 inches tall, and is representation of a little boy pissing. The water squirts out of his lil’ willie and lands in the basin of the fountain. Sure, it is kind of goofy, but really, what’s the big deal? This thing is in all of the guide books and is emblazoned on postcards and t-shirts in cheap souvenir shops all over town.
Whatever.

Failing to find Lop Lop, a bar named after the alter ego of one of my favorite Surrealist artists -- Max Ernst -- we hit an alternative place on my list, Goupil le Fol (22, rue de la Violette). I was told: “Eccentric three-story bar housed in a former brothel that looks like a cross between an opium den and a 1970s porno set. The walls are covered with old paintings of nudes and lurid landscapes, as well as vinyl LPs. Sink into one of the couches, order one of the owner's favorite fruit wines with an Edith Piaf song blaring from a nearby jukebox. Those with less bohemian instincts should stay downstairs, as the clientele gets more and more risqué the higher you climb.”

Goupil le Fol (The Mad Fox) was more or less as described. We had a Belgoo and something else, lost to history (€8 for the round), as we listened to some silly-ass French music from the 1960s. Our ancient splintery table was illuminated by a tiny lamp with a crusty old shade. The labyrinth of little rooms is accessed by rickety staircases packed with oddities. There are dozens of kitschy paintings, plus a Wurlitzer jukebox, a bird cage with a plastic Virgin Mary and some candles in it, fine literature bolted to the wall (so you can see the old browned books, but you can’t read it or steal them), and 78 rpm records nailed to the ceiling (some broken).

Rebecca declared The Mad Fox as being another place worthy of our repeat business. “I feel right at home” she said, before reminiscing fondly about the waffle we’d shared earlier. She also deemed that particular snack worthy of a second helping, but only after some contemplation, and then finished her hour of praise by officially declaring Brussels to be superior to Amsterdam.
I agreed on all counts.

Rebecca also pointed out, rather astutely, that we found three great bars in a row on our first night in Brussels, but there was not one tavern in Amsterdam that we’d especially be in a hurry to return to.

Time to scoot back to Rue de Bouchers: we clearly need to eat.

En route: accordion players performing The Chicken Dance.

Back on Petite Rue des Bouchers (a small spur off of Rue des Bouchers proper; seen below left), we settled on a place called La Vieille Ville which is essentially indistinguishable from all of the other places on the street.  We opted to eat al fresco (that means on the sidewalk patio, cretin). Rebecca indulged in moules et frites, completing our culinary to-do list in its entirety, all in a single glorious if not gluttonous evening.
In contrast, we had a foodie list for Holland too, and I don’t think we checked anything off of it at all.
That said, with the exception of appelgebak, none of our Holland “must-tries” (herring-onion-gherkin sandwich, herring snack at open air market, or eel on a bun) were nearly as enticing as the Belgium list (moules et frites, beer, chocolate, waffles).
So, Brussels wins over Amsterdam for both chow and for bars.

The mussels here were nice, served in a big bucket of course, and my salmon entree was fine. But the fries left a lot to be desired. They were basic generic food-service fries that seemed to have been thawed out from a frozen plastic bag and heated up for us. The bread tasted ancient, the cheese croquet appetizer also tasted like something from the frozen food aisle, and the waffle dessert (as Rebecca noted) had fake whipped cream and poor quality chocolate on it. The street waffle we shared earlier (which had no toppings on it at all) was way better.
So yeah, we came all the way to Belgium for the Eggo/Hershey’s special.
But what can you expect for €12.50 per person?
A Leffe Blonde and a Chimay Bleue set us back a further €4 each, and made the rest of it tolerable.

More on waffles: “In Belgium, there are two general types of waffle. The Brussels waffle is what most people in the U.S. would call a Belgian waffle. It rarely that remarkable. The Liège waffle is nearly impossible to find outside of Belgium. It is sold on the street as a snack, and is what people come back from Belgium swooning about.”
Clearly we had the former with dinner and the latter on the street.

As we finished dinner, the very last vestiges of sunlight were still vanishing from the blue-black sky... and it was almost 11:00 p.m. Very near the restaurant is Dali's Bar (Petite Rue des Bouchers 35), which is said to be decorated a la Dali. I didn’t happen to spot it was we walked through the area, but it is said to be a bit clubby and only open on weekends. Still, the idea of a bar themed after Dali is too enticing for me to have simply ignored, and yet ignoring it is what came to pass. Interesting that both Dali and Max Ernst have namesake bars so near each other. One would think that Belgium’s premeire Surrealists - Delvaux and Magritte - would be better candidates for this honor than their Spanish and German counterparts.

Our train stop is Anneessens, which I immediately dubbed “asinine”.
It was named for one Francois Anneessens (1660-1719) whose statue looks very noble, except for the asinine headband someone added to it.
The handy informational plaque said something about “defendu cointreau”... so if Anneessens died defending the Cointreau, he is ok by me.

Tuesday, June 16th

10:40 a.m.
Walking down the Rue Haute Hoog - which turns out to be an antiques district that we didn’t realize that we’d be coming across - on the way to a flea market that we wanted to check out.

The destination: Place du Jeu de Balle. “Flea market (daily 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.) in Brussels' oldest quarter, the working-class but quickly gentrifying Marolles. Everything from African masks and retro cinema chairs to reproductions of Bruegel. Surrounding streets, Rue Blaes and Rue Haute, are peppered with a mix of antique furniture shops, galleries, and cafes”.

Another comics mural along the way: Herge’s Tin Tin (perhaps Belgium’s most famous character), peeking through a hole in the wall as some kids watch him.

Rebecca thinks that we’re near the projects.

There are some pretty massive housing blocks here, but they’re also interesting looking.
I kidded her that I love coming to Western Europe, because even the projects are of architectural merit.

Coming into a big square on a slightly drizzly and grey morning, we observed perhaps a hundred vendors, with their wares all laid out on big sheets or blankets, all right next to each other. We had to step carefully in the twelve-inch-wide isles between blankets, so as not to trample someone's wares underfoot, all the while looking down at the artifacts ready to take home. There were some fine antiquities out there that morning, and there was also a lot of complete trash. No matter what level their goods were at, these mostly Muslim merchants had no problem operating in close quarters to each other. Some of the vendors had each item carefully laid out on their tarps, reminding me of the wacky hotel room sculpture made by Bob Geldof in the film Pink Floyd: The Wall. Others had their goods in big piles or boxes to rummage through. Some of the junk is displayed like antiques, some of the antiques are displayed like junk. I saw an amazing mid-century bedroom set, but it was just a little too bulky to bring home in my luggage. Household goods, broken radios, stained easy chairs, nice rugs, art with big gashes in it... Lunch: €6.86. Two baguette sandwiches (pre-made this time from the deli department of Delhaize, the local grocery store), a container each of orange juice and apple-cherry juice, and 1.5 liters of water. Note the large quantities of juice and water after last night’s beertopia. Ate it in a grubby plaza near a closed Cuban restaurant and a statue of a monkey. A monkey. De Ape, by Jean Roig. At the other end of this park is an elevator (without a building attached to it) that took us up to the Hall of Justice. There is sort of a small cliff here, in the middle of the city. Brussels is a somewhat hilly town. So we got in the glass lift with four teenage boys who reeked of pot, and had a nice view of the rest of the town as we rode up. Like Paris, there are no extremely tall buildings in Brussels. The sea of classic European architecture, free of chrome or steel or walls of glass, was broken only by our view of the tiny Atomium, far in the distance, looking as alien and as out of place as possible. There is nothing to see at the Hall of Justice, save for the semi-impressive exterior. This one is also under renovation. Is all justice suspended in the mean time? With the weather improving, our “Upper Town” walking tour began here, so we followed the tour map, which conveniently included the the Royal Museum of Fine Arts. We intended to linger there for a chunk of the afternoon and then finish the walking tour in the evening - which promised to be naturally illuminated until 10:00 p.m., or later, once again. We walked along Boulevard de Waterloo, home of all of the expensive designer shops. Dior, Vuitton, Tiffany. This isn’t really our speed, so we whisked past them... until Rebecca spotted a rather impressive Chanel window display that slowed us down for a few moments. Closer to the museum is the Place Grande Chablon - a very small rectangular park with streets and shops on all sides. It is surrounded by at least five chocolate shops. Also found here: extremely high-end antique stores, and a lot of rich old ladies walking their poodles.

Rebecca’s quest for the ultimate chocolatier continues. There are no less than two Pierre Marcolini chocolatiers on the square. One of them sold us a lovely-looking Delvaux - named for the artist? - for € 4.75. A bite-sized raspberry cake with a sort of berry mouse inside, a layer of jelly within the mouse layer, and a sort of cookie base. All coated in chocolate. Shaped like something art deco (right side of picture to right). We made it last for two tiny bites each. Leonidas (another choco-chain in Belgium) sold us a single Champagne Truffle for €0.37, and we also helped ourselves to some tasty samples of chocolate beans (not cocoa beans, from which chocolate is made, but just bean-shaped chocolates).
Those were good.

We walked into Senses Art Nouveau (Rue Lebeau 31, just off the Grande Sablon), which sells fine reproduction art nouveau items, and then the Taschen store (yay!), and also a shop selling tribal antiquities. We also investigated a gothic church (Notre Dame du Sablon) on the other end of the Place (leftmost pic below).

We were further sidetracked by the Place Petit Sablon on the other side of the main road, a great little pedestrian park that begins with some manicured shrubberies blooming with flowers, before leading to a little fountain in a wooded area. Forty-eight small statues along the park’s iron fence represent practitioners of the various medieval arts and crafts of Brussels. A dozen large statues of the Counts of Egmont and Hornes (the plaque says they were decapitated in 1568 for resisting Spanish tyranny) are found in the hilly greenery surrounding the fountain. Guillaume Taciturn’s statue was sculpted in keeping with his surname. He is also known as Prince William I of Orange-Nassau. Louis van Bodeghem looks scholarly. (Pardon the phonetic spelling on the rest of these): Henri de Brederode looks noble. Cornelie de Vriendt is just lookin’. Rambo Dodone has a book and a flower. On the other side are some guys who I don’t think were counts and didn’t lose their heads: Gerard Mercator (the famous cartographer is wearing some big-ass shoes and studying a globe). Jean de Loquenien (looking smug), Bernard van Orly (painter and designer of tapestries, doesn’t look too happy to be having his sculpture taken, plus he is giving the finger, and he is also missing a different finger), Abraham Ortelius (author of the first geographic atlas, looking petulant), and Phillipe de Marnick De Sante Aldeconde (a diplomat, has his book open, and it is covered with leaves).

       

Someone next door to the park was rehearsing piano, trombone, and trumpet music, which drifted among the statues via an open window.      

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts is a large institution, but can still be completely absorbed in one day.  It is substantial and worth the trip, but stops short of being too much to manage. Good. The institution is actually two museums, one “ancient” (Bosch, Breughel - 14th to 18th centuries) and one “modern” (19th and 20th centuries).
One gets to visit both for the bargain price of €5.
In an adjoined building is a third institution, the brand-new Rene Magritte museum (separate admission fee). People who know of my adoration for Surrealist art - Dali, Ernst, Man Ray, Bresson, Tanning, Tanguy, Delvaux, and others - may be surprised to learn that I don’t care for Magritte, and in fact I sort of loathe his work. I find it to be pedestrian and rather obvious, sort of “Surrealism for Dummies”. He kind of sold out the movement, I think, by creating Surrealist works that were dumbed down so that any proletariat could understand them without having to put too much effort into it. Not that art should be impenetrable - in fact my problem with a lot of contemporary art is that it is incestuous and obtuse, created by artists for artists, to the exclusion of the average viewer. But Magritte, to me, isn’t expressing anything other than his own shallowness; he was in it for the wrong reasons. That’s where he differs from his countryman and contemporary, the far more interesting Paul Delvaux.

So needless to say, I did both halves of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in detail, but skipped the Magritte altogether. Naturally, I took extensive notes at the museum, but as I am feeling magnanimous today, I shall spare you all the details....
...unless you want to click here.

Very near to there is the Musical Instruments Museum.
Although I have spent the past twenty years working in the music biz, and although Rebecca is a classically trained horn player, for some reason neither of us were keen to visit this one. I am sure they have some beautiful and rare instruments on display, and it would not have been dull to see them, but part of me feels like it would just be frustrating to just look at them without being able to touch them and hear them being played. I don’t know, perhaps they do have demonstrations, or at least video, but we didn’t find out.
It is worth noting that the building is an astounding Art Nouveau masterpiece, and is well worth lingering in front of for a bit.

We then completed today's walking tour, as defined on the tour map we brought. However, we decided to follow another walking route next, as we happened to end the tour at the beginning of this new route. My notes suggested that: “on the axis of the Rue Royale which, by way of reminder, is the major Brussels artery that links the Palace with the residence of the Kings of the Belgians in Laeken, walk down the fabulous Avenue Louis Bertrand and let your eyes feast on its superb facades, visit the Autrique House (Chaussé e de Haecht, 266 - Horta) and continue to the Cité des Oliviers social housing estate (Rue de l’Olivier, 16-48 - Henri Jacobs), before taking some refreshment at the Ultieme Hallucinatie (rue Royale, 316 — Paul Hamesse)”.

So we continued up the Rue Royale, towards Parc des Bruxelles, a large 18th century park. Near the park entrance, we passed by the Royal Palace and the BELvue museum, two more destinations that weren’t high enough priority to stop for.
We did not see the Autrique House, or the Cité des Oliviers, but we discovered yet another Art Nouveau treasure trove (with many more to come) at the Ultieme Hallucinatie. This is a restaurant built into an 1850 mansion. It was converted to the Nouveau style by Paul Hamesse in 1904, and was restored in 1981. We didn’t want to eat here, but we did wander through the various rooms and check the place out.
Quite impressive.

We got some pre-dinner snacks at a grubby little take away place within a little Turkish neighborhood off of the Rue Royale. Rebecca got a little spinach and feta pie, and I got a baguette filled with feta and some sort of ground-up mystery meat that I was slightly hesitant about consuming.
They could have heated them up for us.
Both for €2.50 total though...

We walked the length of the huge Parc des Bruxelles, rested for a while, and then walked back from whence we came.
I wasn’t thrilled to discover that I was coming down with a cold that had been creeping up on me throughout the day. If you were to argue that I push myself too hard on these trips, I might not have an adequate defense.
At least the weather had turned out to be lovely - the sky was perfectly blue after this morning’s grey beginning.

Truth be told, our rather long hike up Rue Royale didn’t yield much of interest. The Park and the Ultimate Hallucinate were worth seeing, but we’d walked quite a ways without much else to stimulate us.
Rebecca: “that was not very Royale, that Rue... I rue the time I spent on Royale”. Ending up back where we started, near the museum, we passed a lovely botanical garden (right), but were too weary to appreciate it much, and then finally, in the twilight, we walked by the great Palais Du Artes (above left), a huge arts complex near the Musical Instruments Museum, which is filled with great art deco details around a multi-leveld plaza. There is supposedly a Delvaux mural somewhere around here, but I couldn’t find it.

It was getting late.
We had walked a whole lot today, we had not eaten much, and maybe weren’t feeling 100% great, due to last night’s beer and the creeping cold.  We were burned out. We had also spent a lot of money the previous night, so we decided to have a picnic in the hotel room for dinner. Our third-floor room (that’s the fourth floor to you Yanks... Europeans don’t count the ground floor as being the first) had a pair of windows that opened up to the circle below. We had a view of a statue (naturally - this is Europe), and a really swanky restaurant called Comme Chez Soi (“As At Home”) across the way. In order to get back to the hotel, however, we had to pass through that Muslim neighborhood. There were at least a dozen restaurants open, and they were all totally hoppin’, all doing a serious business, feeding big crowds of people. But, the customers were all men. Exclusively. There wasn’t a woman in any of the places, at all.
Relaxing on the patios, the guys all stared at Rebecca, and made her feel a little bit creeped out.

The only place to buy our picnic around here was also a Muslim place (Maromaji, at Ave Stalingrad 126), and even though there were women working in this place, Rebecca still was (justifiably) uncomfortable.  I dunno, maybe they just don't see too many whities in this neighborhood.  That's the thing about being a tourist, one can stumble into all sorts of scenarios, blindly and naively.  So, at a few minutes before 10:00 p.m., we grabbed two baguettes (€.60 each), two 2-liter bottles of water (€.85 each) and a wheel of Camembert (€2.95). A beverage store near the hotel provided a Chimay for Rebecca and a large orange juice for me for about €3.60. We watched the city get dark, we watched some completely retarded chauffeur spend twenty minutes embarrassing himself in a futile attempt to park a fabulous Bentley outside of Comme Chez Soi, and then we hit the sack.

       
Details around Palais Du Artes

Wednesday, June 17th

Sore throat.
Blue skies.
Counted our cash: I budgeted €60 per day for pocket money. I have €273 left for five days, which puts me slightly in the red, but Rebecca has €60 in reserve, so we’re good to go.

After our normal picnic brunch of baguettes, cheese, fruit, juice, potato salad, and Galler chocolate (€9.93), today’s mission was to explore the northern part of Brussels, well outside of the central Upper Town/Grand Palace area that we lingered in Monday and Tuesday. The northern area is less touristy and more residential. Within this zone, we had three points of interest to see, and also three restaurants on the list of potential spots to dine.

First, however, we went to the opposite end of town to see the Belgian Comics Museum (20 rue des Sables in Zandstraat; image to right). As stated earlier, the Belgians are into kiddie-style cartoons, as opposed to the adolescent hero comics favored in America, the all-ages Manga enjoyed by many Japanese people, or the typically “R-rated” stories found in the French/Italian “albums” (often translated and reprinted in the U.S. within the pages of Heavy Metal magazine). The best point of reference for Belgian comics for North Americans would be the good old Sunday funnies in your local newspaper, except that the Belgians have raised this to an art form.

The museum is in a nice Art Nouveau building deigned by Victor Horta, whom I have already mentioned a few times, and whom you’ll be reading about in greater detail very soon. This building is far from his masterpiece, but it was pleasing to visit. Within the space are exhibits about each of the most important Belgian comics creators and their most famous characters. Panels of original art and memorabilia are on display as well. This wasn’t a wholly enriching experience for me, since most of the comics are written in a language I can’t read, and also since I tend to favor stories aimed at adults (and by this, I don’t mean either violence or porn; see the works of Jaime Hernandez, Moebius, and Dan Clowes for reference). The gift shop did sell me a French album by Yann and Berthet for €13 (you’ll recall that Berthet did one of the large graphic works on display at the Atomium, and that he is one of my favorite French comics artists). Rebecca has no interest in comics in any form whatsoever, but she was a trooper and feigned enough interest that I didn’t feel pressured to hurry. Still, we were out of there by 2:30 p.m. Then we were off to our next destination: the home of one Victor Horta! You may be surprised to learn that Brussels has so many surviving examples of the Art Nouveau style, but I did see far more of it here - by far - than in Paris. Perhaps France is thought of as the cradle of Nouveau style, but Brussels is a hidden horde of treasure for fans. To be honest, I have been getting into the Nouveau style more and more lately. I think my taste has evolved backwards from Mid-Century Modern through Art Deco to Art Nouveau. The three-story townhome of Victor Horta (1861 to 1947), located in the Saint-Gilles neighborhood at the southeast end of Brussels (25 rue Américaine), is spectacular. As the father of Belgian Art Nouveau, Horta designed his home fully in keeping with the architectural and decorative style that he had so much to do with promoting in this country. It was built between 1898 and 1901, and expanded in 1906 and 1908. Turned into a museum in 1969. We each paid the €7 fee, and wandered up through the three floors of his home, seeing his studio and his living quarters, admiring the many details that he incorporated into his personal dwelling. Photos were not allowed (a sign told me) unless your name is James and the guard is out for a smoke (fate told me). I had two minutes: how many surreptitious snaps could I take? About fifteen, it turns out. Here are three of em:

       

As impressed with the domicile as Rebecca and I both were, it still can’t possibly take more than thirty minutes to see all there is to see. Our fates were sealed just as we exited however: we were handed a small map showing eleven more Art Nouveau buildings in the vicinity. We took a walk in the cool afternoon sunshine (no sign of rain today), and scoped out the majority of them. Fantastic and beautiful. They just don’t bother making buildings like these anymore.
Mies van der Rohe can bite me.
As much as I like Mid-Century Modern, Mies ushered in the era of the glass-n-steel box, and we’ve seen almost nothing else ever since.
Now we have Frank Gehry to deal with, on the rare occasion when some city wants to put up an "edgy" edifice.  Ugh. Will someone make a building that feels warm and inviting ever again?
Stone.
Wood.
Please.

Walking around this neighborhood, Ixelles (adjacent to Saint-Gilles), every building has, at the very least, some sort of wrought iron balustrade or something, anything, to make it at least a little bit interesting. There are some nice shops and restaurants around here too. This is a nice solidly middle class part of town, a bit away from the center of the city’s business areas and the tourist bits.
Seems like the place to live if you’re in Brussels.

             

                 

Some noteworthy stops on the tour were the Hotel Tassel (1893), the first Nouveau building in all of Brussels.  Designed by Uncle Vic, natch.  Also, thehome of the Eigenwoning family, designed by Paul Hankar (sp?). Little icons of birds along the roofline are labeled: matin / morning (mystery bird), nuit / evening (bat), soir / night (swallow), jour / day (dove).
The Ciamberlani House (1897) has great circular windows, plus art of some nymphs or something, and then some centaur motifs.

We swung by the Galleries Saint Hubert mall again so that I could stop off at Libraries Saint Hubert.  From all of the fantastic tomes available, I decided on a book about Horta as a souvenir (€24.50). We dropped by the hotel, and ditched our jackets (this was not only the warmest day of the trip, but also there was no sign of rain), and my two printed souvenirs, and then it was time for more nocturnal activities. I had heard about three different restaurants, all recommended, and all near each other (and near to where we were). We made for those, intending to do a walk-by of each and then pick one.

By 6:20 p.m. we were at Les Brassins, (36 rue Keyenveld; in Ixelles), a quaint little tavern on a sleepy back street. Audrey Hepburn was born in a completely nondescript little house just a few doors down the road. The quiet street reflected the tavern we were in: it was nearly empty, but pleasant in its inviting calmness. When we first arrived there were no other customers in the place. We found it quite cozy and relaxing. It seemed as though it belonged out in the countryside somewhere, perhaps thirty miles out of the city. A vintage ad decorating a wall showed a cartoon monkey made of orange peel slices. Schmidt blanc, aperitif de vin.

Some of the food coming out of the kitchen, as other customers arrived, looked fantastic and smelled great, but we weren’t ready to eat yet. However, we’d gone almost completely beerless the previous night, and we were in Belgium, so it was time to make up for lost time: a St. Bernardus (€3.40) for me, and a Kriek (€4.60) for International Rebecca. Next up were a Rochefort 8 (€3.30) and a Fruit Defendu (Forbiden Fruit; €2.80). The latter had a picture of Adam toasting Eve on the bottle; she didn’t wait for him though, she is already drinking. The glass for the Rochefort was designed so as to make the beer in the glass work graphically with the logo on the side. That’s good design, there.

Belgian beers all have specific glasses that they need to be served in. The size and shape of each glass is always unique, and some say that the glass is crucial to the experience of enjoying that particular beer. Les Brassins had all of the glasses lined up on shelves behind the bar, all ready to be matched up with the waiting bottles. Most taverns in Belgium showed this level of attention to detail. These people take their beer rather seriously. It might be noted at this point that although I enjoy beer, I haven’t had more than a few of them in the past couple of years. I have mostly been pursuing craft cocktails lately, when and wherever I can, and I go with wine when I can’t get a solidly made cocktail. Rebecca, for her part, has never been a beer fan, preferring either wine or gin, please. But the beers in Belgium were so fresh, and of such a high quality, that there was no other alternative other than to drink this nation dry of it. Oh, and we did try... I think Rebecca had more beer on this trip than she had consumed collectively in the five years I have known her. I had more.

As we imbibed at the steadily busier Les Brassins, among the friendly Belgians in their surprisingly cool town, we made fun of them too: all of the people who aren’t sophisticated enough to be French or good-looking enough to be Dutch are tossed into the purgatory of Belgium, condemned to speak a mashup of both languages but to truly be neither. So rude. We are so kidding, Belgian people.

A song came on the radio whose lyrics absolutely had to be modified: “France to the left of me / Holland to the right / here I am / stuck in the middle in Bruges”. You know the original.
Well, you do don’t you?
They also played the immortal earworm “Chick Habit” by April March (after 1960s icon France Gall). Once that one is stuck in your head, you are doomed. All the tunes were from Tarantino movies.

After the exchange rate, we’d probably spent $20 at Les Brassins (www.lesbrassins.com, by the way), and it was worth every cent; this tab would have been better than twice that at home, and how often do you get to swill trappist beers within smelling distance of Audrey Hepburn’s childhood abode?

Now we were really ready to eat, so we made for the second place on the list, Au Vieux Bruxelles (35 rue St.-Boniface) “in the heart of a lively Congolese neighborhood, away from the tourists. Moules et frites aficionados swear by it, serves delectable mussels made with beer, curry and blue cheese, for about 20 euros”.
Sadly, they were closed up, apparently for either remodeling or vacation. The corrugated shutters pulled over the storefront had Nouveau motifs painted on them; a mantle on the building claimed a construction date of 1882. The local Congolese - no doubt descended from immigrants into Belgium during Belgium’s rule of the Congo - were diluted only by a few Caucasian tourists eating in the handful of restaurants in the area. We saw an affluent-looking couple come striding around the corner, and concluded that they could only be in this area to dine; we surreptitiously spied on them to see where they went, and indeed they were going to eat... in a place that looked snooty and pretentious.
We moved on.

As we walked away, a waffle truck came down the small back street we were on. It was like the ice cream truck at home, but with waffles. We got one from the truck as a snack, and it was delicious. The army of Congolese children who found the truck just after we did all got strawberries.

Next we made it to Waterloo, a larger main avenue, with a whole strip of restaurants doing a lively business on their huge front patios. Our destination there was Le Trappiste (Avenue de la Toison d'Or 3). I had been told: “Belgians have an impressive way with raw beef. Witness filet Américain. Le Trappiste is a classic old place with red leather booths and wooden chairs and waiters with slicked hair and bow ties.  They serve three different presentations of filet: the standard one, a mound in the center of the plate, served with toast; the sandwich one, in which the beef is piled onto a baguette; or toast cannibale”.

Le Trappiste was more or less as described, so we planted ourselves at one of the sidewalk tables for some al fresco dining (with more beer, natch). The evening was sunny and the daylight showed no signs of diminishing. It was cool here for summer, but not unpleasantly so. Le Trappiste, like so many other places we’ve seen today, shows a slight Nouveau influence. A large wooden statue of a Muchaesque woman dominates the interior, but no one was sitting inside; everyone was out on the large but full patio. The tables all had Mucha poster art embedded in the Formica.

The waiter, slick as promised and a dead ringer for the actor Steve Buscemi (speaking of Tarantino films!), brought us beers on a shiny silver tray (St. Bernadus 12 for me - upping the ante from the Bernadus 8 quaffed earlier - and for International Rebecca, a Westmal double), with fancy coasters and a bowl of spiced peanuts. Next up was the long-awaited toast cannibale: some kind of raw beef paste on white bread toast, with gherkins and little pearl onions. Rebecca, a vegetarian when I met her in 2003, and who almost starved in Japan last year (due the creepy-crawlies in her salad and elsewhere) eagerly scarfed down the delicacy, noting afterwards, with some combination of wonder and glee: “I just ate raw beef and it was good!”.
The bill came to €16, and between the relaxing yet festive vibe, and the good beer n’ beef, it was cash well spent.

Wandering back towards the hotel, we pondered a large fountain made up of ten ornate stone rings. It was not active and was filled with brackish grey water. We remembered that a fountain in the sculpture garden outside of the art museum was similarly abandoned, as were a few others in town. Apparently, with the exception of Manekin Pis, the Belgians aren’t into fountain maintenance.

As the evening finally began to threaten to settle into dusk, circa 10:00 p.m., we got a final round of beverages at a convenience store (€9.30 for three beers, an orange juice - or sinaasappelsap - and a bag of exotic chip-like snack food), and went back to the hotel. We passed a store for stamp collecting supplies, an art supply store, and a few of the many music stores that we noted in this neighborhood (that’s instruments, not records). Rebecca enjoyed her Barbar beer, with a little African spear chucker on the label, I liked the Orval with the Art Deco label, and we had to finish up with a Bush (no relation to the American Busch of course) which boasted of being “The Strongest Belgian Beer” on the label (in English) at 12% a.b.v.

Feeling goofy, we wandered back out, and walked over to the notorious Comme Chez Soir, the very expensive restaurant across the circle from our hotel, to have a look at the menu.
€15,900 for caviar, €98 for filet of sole with lobster médaillons and a market salad.  Or just try the lunch special for the bargain price of €55. I cannot imagine any meal so good that it is worth this much cash. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns: as the cost of a meal increases, so should the quality (theoretically), but this is only true to a degree. There comes a point where you can keep charging more, but you just can’t possibly make the food taste significantly enough better to justify the inflated price.

We were distracted on the way back by a girl talking into her phone, sounding like she had been inhaling helium.
We realized that we needed more food - and not from Comme Chez Soir - so we meandered to an all night middle eastern sandwich shop.
Curry chicken on a baguette....

Part 1       Part 2       Part 3

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