While we were waiting for Jemp and Lony to park the car in an underground spot, Holly and I waited in a little square where we found a wonderful statue of a man with his dog.
It turns out this is the man who was responsible for the last restoration of the Place. Here is what Wikipedia says - "In the late 19th century, mayor Charles Buls had the Grand Place returned to its former splendour, with buildings being reconstructed or restored."
On the way to the Grand Place, we walked by this marvellous building. It's called Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and is a fantastic shopping plaza.
And now here are some photos of the Grand Place -
To add to this, the architecture in the Place is Rococco, Louis XIV and Gothic. Each very different and each very beautiful. I was amazed at all of the gold 'gilding'. Its interesting to see them beside each other and amazing to know that they were rebuilt/restored. Europeans do treasure their historical buildings.
ReplyDeleteOur visit here was brief as it was a stop on our way back to Luxembourg. An hour was all we needed to appreciate the Place from the outside. Longer and we would have entered the museum and probably shopped too much. Every other shop was a chocolate shop, a lace shop or a touristy trinket shop.
We did pass the Royal Palace on our way out which appeared enormous from the road.
The city of Brussels (from our limited view) was very compacted, busy with traffic and people and I did note a lot of graffiti. Not in the centre but in the general city surrounding the Place.
Lony and Jemp tells us that real estate in Belgium is 1/3 to 1/2 of the price in Luxembourg. Often, people from Luxembourg buy and live in Belgium due to its affordability and commute to work in Luxembourg.
An oddity I saw on our way back to the parkade was a very large statue of a Smurf near the Place. I pointed it out and Mom thought it was one of the seven dwarfs. Researching it now, I see there IS a Smurf Store in Brussels that is, "...the first shop of its kind and is therefore a world first, reserved for the little blue creatures' country of origin (they were created by Peyo in 1958)". Who knew?
Mom and I are now discussing the typos and grammatical errors in my comment above. As we can't figure out how to copy and paste it into a new comment without the font going wonky and adding an odd background color, the comment stands as is. Please forgive them.
DeleteThe link to the Smurf Store is http://www.smurfstore.be/. Fun!