Our 2nd Belgian city was Brussels. The train trip down to Brussels from Antwerp was just about an hour long. So we were at our hotel (again, right next to the train station) by early afternoon. It was a much fancier hotel than we usually stay in. I had found a “special deal” on the internet and now this fancy place, the Royal Windsor Grand Place, was going to be our home for 4 nights. Cool! To pass the time until the room was ready, we walked down to the Grand Place of Brussels.
As we walked the little streets off the Grand Place, I spotted a place with the word “bécasse” in its name. This word is one that I have come to know through the translation work I am doing on a French clothing inventory. In this inventory, there is a word that appears to be spelled “velcasse” and I have been trying to figure out what the word could actually be. It turns out that “bécasse” is one of those words that it could be, except that a “bécasse” is a sandpiper-type of bird (see photo on right below), which doesn’t fit into the context of a clothing inventory very well….sigh! But, as it turned out, the place called “À la Bécasse” was a Belgian pub! And one that had its own sour ale (lambic) no less. And Jims really love Belgian lambic. So in we went for beer and lunch. I had a really wonderful spaghetti and Jim had a Belgian type of cheese sandwich: a thin smear of a white cheese on a large piece of toasted bread. And we had beer of course!
Well fortified with our beer and lunch, we headed off to the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée (Belgian Center for Comic Art). We spent a lovely couple of hours learning about the amazing art that goes into “graphic art” comics. These are very popular in Europe! And the museum was housed in a beautiful art nouveau building designed by Victor Horta (see bottom photo below).
After the museum, I had the need for “a little something” and there was a little café we had passed earlier that had some lovely pastry tarts in its window. So we had our afternoon “hot beverage” (coffee for Jim; tea for Dawn) and shared a (generous) piece of raspberry tart. It was now late enough that our room would be ready so we headed back to the hotel to get settled in. The room was really nice: it had its own hot-water heater (so Jim and I could obtain “hot beverage” whenever we wanted) and even a fancy radio that allowed Jim to connect his iPhone to it and channel KCSM Jazz Radio (from the CA Bay Area) over the radio’s large speakers! Life was good indeed!
Our original motivation (excuse?) for this Europe trip was that one of Jim’s colleagues at Bucknell, Kat Wakabayashi, was on sabbatical with his family in Brussels. He really must, we were sure, want us to come visit. And this evening was the night we’d schedule to meet Kat and his wife Yoko for dinner. They took us to a wonderful restaurant called Belga Queen. Very modern furnishings inside what looked like a 19th-century train station. Lovely combination. I had a kir, of course, as an apéritif, followed by an appetizer of lightly-grilled scallops in a sauce of butter and Orval beer. For the meal, I had a small rack of lamb with two little pots of sauces: one mustard and the other cream. Delightful! It was served with a Dauphinois of vegetables: very thin slices of zucchini, carrots, and potatoes with fine layers of a light white cheese (ricotta?). We had a lovely Loire valley red wine with the meal. I couldn’t even finish all my lamb (excellent though it was). But Jim was more than happy to help a lady in “distress”. So for dessert, I opted for the lightness of sorbet (a personal favorite): a scoop each of framboise, cassis, and mint. A most excellent meal with the excellent companionship of Kat & Yoko. We thank them for their wonderful hospitality! As we all walked back to our hotel, we walked through the Grand Place again. This time it was all lit up, with a “light show” going on.
Our 2nd day in Brussels was divided between Dawn & Jim tasks. My task was to get to the Musée des Beaux Arts (Fine Arts Museum) in Brussels to study the Haneton Triptych by Bernard Van Orley. The images I had seen of it promised some interesting details of headdresses. Jim’s task was to get us to a particular beer pub he had picked out. So we started off to the museum, which turned out to be a fairly short walk from the hotel. Once again, we were met with a line (not as long as at the Louvre) because we had to pass through security: parcels & bags scanned, coats undone. And we were met with the news that the 16th-century French room was closed! I was a bit bummed but hoped that the paintings I was after would still be visible: they were Flemish, not French. We were directed to the 2nd floor for the Old Masters. This level provided a lovely view of the museum building.
As we walked through the rooms of mostly Flemish art, I was able to find several art works from the late-15th and early-16th centuries with useful headdress details. And, in the 3rd (4th?) room, there was the Haneton Triptych…..yaaa-hooo! I’ve provided the Wikipedia link of this work so that you can get a good view of the whole triptych. My photos are pretty detailed and not capable of giving you a feel for the whole thing. Obviously, it’s the righthand panel that is of interest to me! So this work proved to be a very valuable find! Many photos and drawings were obtained! Once again, Jim was a very patient and helpful research assistant; and once again, he took photos of me at work.
There were also quite a few works by Brueghel here. It was very useful to be able to really study the figures in these works. Most reproductions I have seen concentrate more on the entire scene. But these scenes are usually very detailed. By standing in front of them, I was able to focus on the headdresses shown…a very educational task. Shown below (on the left) is a detail from “Festival with Theater and Procession” [translation mine] by Pieter Brueghel II. Also beautiful to see is the Flemish artists’ portrayal of the amazing textiles of the 15th and 16th centuries. The closeup below (on the right) from “Virgin Among the Virgins” (by the Master of the Legend of St. Lucy) shows an example: green & gold brocade in foreground, red satin w/ silver embroidery on right edge.
By the time we were out of the Fine Arts Museum, it was nearly dusk. Dawn’s task complete, it was now time for Jim’s task. He navigated us to a pub called Moeder Lambic (photo below on left). There was a pretty good rain going by the time we got there. So it was good to land somewhere warm and dry…and with a most excellent selection of beers as well! And to top it all off, they had a bit of a food menu too! I ordered a bacon & cheese quiche that came with a small salad. Jim ordered the…wait for it….meat and cheese plate; and this one was by far the nicest of any yet encountered! Lovely selection of excellent cheeses, 2 different types of salami, and two types of mustard! My self-assigned “beer mission” this trip was to sample a type of Belgian beer that I enjoy, called a triple (tripel). Here I tried two tripels that I had never heard of and that I really enjoyed. Jim also found some wonderful beer here. Cheers!
Needless to say, it was another evening to decide that we did not need a dinner meal. We had a wet walk back to the hotel for a quiet evening in our decadent splendor. We felt that we had become familiar enough with the Brussels train station and its schedules that tomorrow’s task was to venture out on a day-trip to Ghent….
la françoysse 