From the Pl Poelaert we walked on to our appointment at the Horta Museum, where phones, cameras, and bags are strictly forbidden and toured the fascinating dual building. Afterwards, we walked past the Palais d’Egmont (Egmont Palace) and into the Square du Petit Sablon. Click the images above to see them full sized and with descriptive captions (you may need to click the post title first to access on the web site if you are seeing this in email).
While we were admiring the view, I saw these 2 young men taking a selfie. Using hand signals with my rusty French, they agreed to let me take their picture. I shared my photo business card with them and the one on the right asked me to take a picture of him solo.
The immense Palais de Justice, a building that looks like something out of Gormenghast, has been undergoing renovation for some time. We took an elevator from Rue des Minimes up to the level of the Palace, took a quick look and walked out onto the Place Poelaert which gives a tremendous view across rooftops of the area below. Click any picture to see them all full sized (you may need to click the post title, above, first if you’re seeing this in an email).
We arrived in Brussels on the EuroStar from London and walked up the slightly seedy Boulevard de l’Europe, heavily graffiti’d, to the Avenue de Stalingrad (even the Russians have reverted the name of Stalingrad) which led to our hotel. This is a broad avenue with mostly Arabic restaurants, coffee shops, and groceries that is undergoing massive renovation and construction. Only the first picture, above left, is from the hotel walk; others are from our afternoon sojourn of some nearby neighborhoods. Click any picture to see them all captioned and enlarged (if you’re getting this via email you may have to click the post title, above, first to do this).
We spent last week in Belgium as tourists. We walked around Brussels for a few days, then took a train to Ghent for a day, a train to Ostend the next day and Bruges the day after that. Then we shifted to Antwerp for a few days. Lots of pictures coming up, many of them just touristy snapshots and postcard images. I will attempt to weed out too many you could just see in a guidebook and focus on those with a slightly more artistic or, at least, I hope, interesting perspective. As always, click on any image to see them all full sized (if you’re getting this in email you may need to click through to my site first by clicking on the post title, above).
