Brussels

From Brussels:
*My first five hours in this city were spent working on a story about Food Lion’s parent, Delhaize. So the first sights I saw were the nondescript headquarters building and some grocery stores, including one inside a shopping mall that resembled a standard U.S. mall. It was anticlimactic after imagining Brussels as a beautiful place. But once I found my way to my hotel, one block away from the Grand Place (a Baroque plaza dating to 1695), I discovered the city’s charm and character.

*I was rather tired because I’d traveled to Heidelberg the night before to see my friend Peggy from Duke and I was working on 3.5 hours sleep, so the rest of the day considered of napping, searching for an Internet connection and having dinner at a great restaurant recommended by my guidebook, Chez Leon, where I had some cherry-flavored Belgian beer and the local specialty, mussels (and chocolate mousse of course). It’s on a street a few blocks north of the Grand Place, the Rue des Bouchers, full of neon restaurant signs and waiters who try to lure you to their places. The people at the next table were from Ohio so I chitchatted with them a bit.

*The next morning after some hunting I found a free Wi-Fi connection (it was difficult, Belgium doesn’t seem to be as far along with wireless Internet as Germany or the U.S.), and got my first updates since Tuesday on the devastation wrought by the hurricane and the gas panic/shortage in Charlotte. It colored the rest of my visit with sadness.

*But I continued with plans to go on a walking tour described in my guidebook. I started at the Grand Place and headed to the next landmark, the Manneken Pis. It’s a fountain with a little figurine of a child peeing into it, and I’m mystified about why it’s such a popular attraction, but I dutifully took a photo. I worked my way to the Grand Sablon/Petit Sablon squares – passing a 12th century section of city wall – and shopped at the two chocolate stores described in my guidebook as the best in Belgium. I went a little nuts (and yes, it’s very good chocolate). Then I went to the Beaux Arts museum and saw a little of the Rubens collection and other older works, plus most of the modern art section. I didn’t like the old section very much because it consisted mostly of gloomy religious scenes or dour portraits. One work that attracted me with its bright colors turned out to be a narrative about an innocent guy wrongly beheaded and the woman who set him up getting burned at the stake. Nice stuff. Significant portions were closed for construction, including the sculpture hall. The modern art part was interesting, sort of an upside-down New York Guggenheim spiraling down underground. (I also took some time in the museum café to work on typing a story on my laptop).

*I then wended my way through Brussels Park and saw the parliament building, then a striking cathedral on a hill. The route then took me to Martyrs Square, which has tributes to an 1830 Dutch uprising, but there was construction going on and I couldn’t see much. I worked my way back to Grand Place through a very busy shopping boulevard.

*A dinner last night and a breakfast this morning with various professional contacts were the remaining highlights of the trip.

*I continue to feel sick about the devastation back home. Today’s Wall Street Journal had a story examining how cities recovered from disasters including the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, the Galveston hurricane and other disasters as devastating or more so, and the conclusion was that cities always bounce back, even if it takes a decade or more. But in the meantime there will be a lot of pain.