Bruxelles

It was just a short train ride from Amtwerpen to the capital sity. Relaxing and watching the scenary go by was rather nice. Suddenly everything is in french.

So the freshest baguettes today, still hot from the oven and the most lovely croissants. The cheeses are amazing.

I live 17 minutes walk from the centre of the city so I went for a wander to see what the town is like. The centre is old school rich. I centred myself on the park. It was once the hunting park for the king but he kindly gave it to the people. The landscape architects levelled it and created a lake, wide walkways, geometrical precison and planted rows of trees amid the hundreds of statues. Lovely but the wild woods must have been more real. There were no flowers, a bit late but also so dry. It was lovely to have some rain this afternoon.

Here is the freedom statue that commemorated those lost in war and gives us peace. It overlooks the city and leads to the European Union House.

Thanks goodness the bike paths here are few and I dont take my life in my hands everytime I cross into them. The bikes seem to have shared space with pedestians.

The lamposts at the statue

The royal park

Four streets around it are huge and there is parliament house on one side

The royal theatre

a Bandstand in the middle

The royal palace on the other side

King Leopold on his horse along the museum row

He is outside the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and the Cathedral

but it goes for miles

I will devote a whole day to it.

One of the windows

You can see that this was all built in the heyday of expansion and colonisalism.

Then overlooking the Grote Mart

and the gardens.

It takes some getting used to to have a hill and something other than flat ground.

Some of the guild houses

See the mixture of old and new, opulent and poor, clean and grotty.

And the Belgians just pass it all by, on a mission, doing some shopping and ignoring the tourists. A good taste for day 1.

Talking of taste, I had a picnic for lunch, like we used to do on our trips Della.

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