EuroGrams: Posts from Backpacking in Europe: So Little Time, So Much Belgium

Sitting on the evening train to Amsterdam and watching Belgium pass me by, I can't help but regret that I only had two days to get a taste of the country. We arrived to Brussels by 11 on Saturday to find the city dozing in complacency. As we walked with our heavy backpacks down a wide-laned, shop-filled street there were very few people walking about under the overcast late-morning sky. Of course, we were extremely languid ourselves having left our hostel at 4 to catch the 6:50am flight from Dublin.

After dropping our bags at our hostel and in spite of our exhaustion, we headed back out to see the Grand Place--a 15th century market square. I knew little about the Grand Place and hadn't really thought much about it except that is was a market and it was somehow "grand." As we rounded the corner down the narrow lane that led to the center square, I had no choice but to wake up as that word came to life. It is indeed "grand" and probably the most ornate concentration of architecture I have ever seen. There were more statues on the buildings' facades than Notre Dame and Westminster combined, and more spires than you can imagine. After staring in awe for several minutes we ventured down some of the cobblestone sidestreets with the hundreds of other tourists (ahh--here are all the people) and stared longingly at the chocolate and waffle shops and admired the lace shops and comic strip murals. I finally gave in and bought a few bonbons at the famous Neuhaus chocolate shop right next to the Mannekin Pis fountain, the unexplained national symbol--a statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain.

However, the more I think about it, that fountain is a pretty good symbol of the city. It's not that little boys go around cheerfully peeing in fountains, but Brussels, like the statue, seems a bit comical, nonchalant, and a little bit strange. On the surface the city is an eclectic mix of old world, art nouvou architecture, glass-fronted buildings, modern sculpture, and grafitti. The people are also eclectic and seem neither friendly nor rude. Instead there is a kind of sarcasm in the way they respond to you like there is some joke you missed. Maybe that is why the comic strip is such a revered art form in Belgium that Brussels even has a comic strip museum.
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This attitude combined with the perpetual grey skies left Caitlin and I feeling a bit disenchanted. On day two, however, we decided to take a 45 minute train to the ultra-touristy medieval town of Bruges. It was a great decision because although the clouds were still out they gave this city an old world aura. The throngs of other tourists were a lively relief to the empty Saturday streets of Brussels. We even met three other travels from Panama on our train who happened to be staying at our hostel and going to Bruges at the same time. The five of us clung together for the day admiring the market square, going to a chocolate museum with a life size chocolate Barack Obama among many things, and taking a scenic boat tour down the canal. After a late lunch that included Belgian fries and a momentary distraction by a road race that happened to be going on that day (maybe a marathon—sponsor Carrefour), we said goodbye to our friends and took the train back to Brussels to grab our backpacks and catch the next train to Amsterdam.

Over our two day Belgium experience, we caught ourselves checking off the stereotypical accomplishments--eating Belgian fries, seeing Mannekin Pis and the Grand Place, sampling Belgian chocolate, but the list seems silly now knowing as I ride on this train to Amsterdam that I really experienced very little of the true Belgian culture. For now it will remain a mystery. I've seen the front cover and the the inside flap's synopsis, but I have yet to read the book and understand what it is the Belgian people are hiding beneath their sarcasm and sideways smiles. If it's anything like the cover, it must be good and I can't wait to read it.

~Lori