We could see the Atomium from our hotel room, far out to the north in the Brussels suburbs. Its stainless steel globes sparkled in the May sunshine, much as they have done since this bizarre symbol of the 1958 World’s Fair first opened.
My late grandparents owned a souvenir model of one of Belgium’s more unusual attractions, set on a black stone plinth, which they’d bought when they visited Brussels many moons ago. As a child I was always curious about it, what it was supposed to be and assumed that the real thing was just as small, like a statue. Back then, I never thought visitors could go inside and that it stood many storeys high…
But before we paid it a visit, we headed south to the Place Eugene Flagey and its popular Sunday market. For a reason that now eludes me, I was under the impression that this was a flea market with stalls piled high with antiques, retro stuff and assorted other junk, so you can imagine our disappointment when we turned up in an Uber to find it overflowing with food, drink and flowers. Neither is the Place one of Brussels’ better-looking squares, other than its striking Art Deco Flagey building that dominates the south side and is today a cultural centre. With little else to keep us, we wandered off towards Parc Leopold, a pretty spot with a lake, cute moorhen chicks and some grand buildings that had mostly been built to service science and research in times past.
If we needed proof that Brussels has some liveable roads, stylish houses and appealing shops, this little walk from Flagey to Parc du Cinquantenaire proved it, with yet more Art Deco, art nouveau and Flemish flourishes on the attractive buildings. Some areas reminded us of New York’s best residential streets.
Parc du Cinquantenaire is a large green space that butts up against the modern European district and during our visit thousands milled about at the finish of a 20km city run. Banana skins and empty water bottles spilled out of bins and filled the gutters, ambulance sirens wailed and sweaty, exhausted folk staggered past. It meant it was difficult to appreciate the gigantic complex of buildings from the 1880 National Exhibition, now mostly given over to museums and galleries, and a triumphal arch built later in 1905. This was Belgium doing its best to reflect its Colonial mastery and it looks horribly pompous. I fancied the aviation wing of the Military Museum but it was closed to accommodate knackered, blistered runners.
Leopold II was in large part responsible for the buildings in the park and there’s much celebration of him in Brussels in the form up statues and memorials but he was, of course, something of a genocidal maniac and ultimately to blame for the terrible atrocities committed in the Congo, his own personal fiefdom in 19th century central Africa. How the Belgians feel about him I don’t know – perhaps their view is coloured by one of his descendants sitting on the throne to this day – but he’s not a man anyone in their right mind can admire.
Security was tight in the park, and indeed generally across the city. Outside the EU Commission building we bumped into three or four soldiers wielding intimidating-looking automatic weapons and it was not unusual to see others on the streets and the metro. And there were plenty of police on the beat too, all in response to the terror attacks that have scarred the city in recent years. Fortunately it doesn’t appear to have put locals or visitors off enjoying all that Brussels has to offer, which is how it should be.
Another Uber ride later found us in the Heysel district to the north, deposited in the landscaped grounds of the aforementioned Atomium. It’s a part of the city that’s associated with death because just a few yards away is the Heysel Stadium, where 39 football fans were killed during a match back in 1985. The Atomium, though, is as tourist-tastic as it gets, a highly efficient machine designed to relieve us of as much money as possible in the shortest possible time. Despite that, and at more than 100m high, it’s a fabulous sight.
We queued in the humidity for the lift to the top and took in the views, which locally include many Art Deco buildings from the World’s Fair, and then explored the lower pods through a network of stairs and escalators. These house a number of exhibits about the history of the icon, its design, the people who worked there and so on, but it’s quite dry and could be done a whole lot better. It’s the design that’s most interesting, with staircases that look like something out of the sci-fi film Metropolis. One of the escalators has an impressive light show that would probably send people prone to fits into the nearest accident and emergency unit. Overall it’s worth a visit but unlike my grandparents I didn’t buy a souvenir from the tat-heavy shop.
In the evening the Brussels jazz festival was in full swing, as it had been throughout our weekend visit, but the city was predictably quieter being a Sunday, and drizzle fell now and again. Amid the cobbled streets of the city centre we found a traditional French brasserie with a startlingly good mural over the walls and ceilings, completed in the style of Magritte. I stuffed myself full of cassoulet before we ventured back to the gay bars of the Rue du Marche au Chabron, where I added to my bloatedness by swilling more fine Belgian beer.
Brussels is an easy city to like. It avoided mass destruction in both world wars so much of its history remains along with great architecture, from humbler dwellings to grand palaces. It doesn’t feel too big, too touristy or too pompous – despite the best efforts of Leopold II – and it has numerous charming squares and districts. Sablon is one, an elegant neighbourhood of eateries, appealing shops, bars and cobbled streets that we explored in our last few hours before having to return to the airport. It’s the Brussels that will linger long in my memory…