Bruxelles

I’m just back from a couple of weeks in Brussels, house-/cat-sitting for a friend in a lovely townhouse in the Ixelles area of the city, kept company by two friendly but undemanding cats, Ginger and Oreo.

It wasn’t really a holiday per se, more of a break and a change of scene. I took my laptop, spent a bit of time working, some time exploring and some time just hanging out. The house very much reminded me of the house I lived in while au-pairing in Switzerland back when I finished university and exploring a European city on my own also reminded me of that time. That got me reflecting on what a different experience it is now. Instead of relying on my dog-eared copy of Let’s Go Europe 1990 and paper maps picked up from Tourist Offices, this trip was incredibly phone-dependent! Google maps got me everywhere, just finding my way around the streets of the city or checking the times of trains or buses to get out of town. The house was 5 minutes from a large park which gave way to an enormous area of forest. I was impressed that the footpaths both in the park and through the forest had “street names” which appear on google maps making it super easy to find your way even way out into the forest.

And at the end of a walk or just a morning at my laptop, there was a great outdoor café-bar in the park to hang out people-watching. One afternoon, I found myself sitting next to a lad in Birkenstocks at the next table earnestly reading a book and underlining sections with a red pencil. There was a super-trendy and distinctly gender-fluid couple sipping beers, an older man with white hair and tanned legs under rumpled linen shorts looking after a small grandchild and some older ladies gossiping furiously in French. Now THAT’s how to while away a summer afternoon!

I also managed to download a couple of ‘walking tours’ into google maps, one to explore the city’s comic strip street art, another of Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecture. The street art I did mostly in one long day of wending my way around city streets, the architecture got broken down into several shorter sections. Some of the buildings were really impressive, others less exciting or run-down, but it was a good excuse to explore the streets of a generally lovely city.

 

I particularly liked the paint testers on the bottom right door.

I had a couple of forays out of town. The first was a bus ride just south of the city to Château de la Hulpe, a country estate that’s home to the Folon art foundation. I didn’t recognize the name Jean-Michel Folon, but I soon realized a lot of his work was very familiar. The exhibition itself was just magical and a chat with the receptionist proved to be my longest conversation in French of the trip – it always amazes me when people actually understand me in French!

Then I hopped on a train to Bruges. It was a slightly grey day, and I was a bit lacking in energy as I was recovering from a rotten cold that hit me halfway through my stay, and I have to admit I wasn’t blown away by Bruges. It was still a nice day though and I even got to meet up with a work contact for coffee in the afternoon, which was cool, especially as he’s from the city, so I got a bit of a local’s angle too.

 Merci, Kati. Merci, Oreo and Ginger. Merci, Bruxelles!