My first stop this morning was the Place de Grand Sablon antiques market, which was exactly 10 steps from my hotel! Then I headed to La Place du Petite Sablon, which is a lovely formal garden planted in 1890 and fenced in by 48 bronze statues that each represent a different medieval guild.
I decided to visit Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (fine arts museum) in the morning because it was also a block away from my hotel and I figured it could get busy in the afternoon if there wasn't much going on. I spent about 1.5 hours going through paintings from the 1700s to present day. Most of the works were Belgian, with a few international pieces (notably Dali, Picasso and Burne-Jones) thrown in for good measures. Apart from Rubens, I can't say that I'm all that familiar with Belgian artists. There were two works I found very striking by Gustaf Wappers -- Boccaccio lees koningein Johanna Van Napels de Decancerone Voor (1849) and Episode de journées de septembre 1830 (1835). Other interesting Belgian artists included Bruegel the Elder, Bruegel the Younger, Antoon Van Dyck (who actually worked for Rubens), Van Rysselberghe and Claus.
As it was getting to be lunch time, I decided to save the older works and the special Rubens exhibit (which conveniently opened the day I arrived) for the afternoon. I started off in the direction of the Sacre Ilot to find some decent coffee and something to eat, but decided to make a detour to see Manneken Pis because he was on the way and I hadn't paid him a visit yet. This is a 30 cm-high statuette of a naked boy pissing in the street. I arrived just in time to take a picture of his naked self -- his keepers were preparing to put some clothes on the handsome devil. Instead of waiting to see which outfit would be selected, I went off in search of Zinneke Pis. This is the canine companion to Mannekin Pis -- a statue of a dog watering a post.
I figured I'd get some food before heading back to Manneken Pis, but was again sidetracked -- this time by a biergarten. Mmmm... beer! This weekend is the Folklore festival in Brussels, with musical and dance performances from different countries, and a variety of BEvERage tents. So I guess I had beer for breakfast -- at least it was apple beer. Yummy! Enjoyed some of the musical performances. Grabbed a stuffed baguette and consumed it en route to the fine arts museum (with a quick stop to check out the Manneken's new duds).
I enjoyed a leisurely stroll through the older Belgian paintings (dating from about 1400-1700). Then I tackled the Rubens exhibit, which was very well done. Art historians conducted four years of re-analysis of his paintings in preparation for the exhibit. The exhibit served as a strong reminder that many of the famous painters (talented as they may have been) were also extremely successful entrepreneurs. In fact, many paintings left Rubens' shop with only a stroke or two of his brush (if any). He had several assistants working for him (as I mentioned above, Van Dyck was one of these) and he even outsourced many projects over the years. The exhibit also included several forgeries. He had many of his works "duplicated" in his own shop, but there were (of course) others who tried to pass of their paintings as the real deal.
Headed back to the festival and had a beer called "Delerium" while enjoying a marching band. Had my first Beligian waffle of the trip, which are served on the street and topped high with whipped cream, chocolate, strawberries, bananas... whatever your poison happens to be. My brother Jason is fond of Beligian waffles, so I had to have one in his honor. My travels took me past Manneken Pis again, and he was wearing some kind of crazy Mardi Gras outfit this time.
That was a pretty full day. I'm just taking a quick break now to type up this blog entry and give my feet a rest. Walking on cobblestones all day is tough work, and my feet are suffering a bit. I may have to break down and do some sort of bus tour of Paris tomorrow!
Latest Travel Plans
I'm still planning to travel from Brussels to Paris tomorrow (Monday). The journey takes just under 1.5 hours and there are about 25 trains throughout the day. I haven't booked any accommodations yet, but I'm hoping to luck out like I did in Brussels. I expect to be in Paris from Monday until at least Saturday morning (and maybe until the morning of the 25th). I'm still playing things by ear -- if I decide I need to move around a bit, I may head up to Amsterdam and/or Antwerp for a day or two. Internet access is supposed to be easy to find in Paris, but seems to be a bit pricey. I'll still try to keep this blog as up-to-date as possible.
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