We are staying in the home of a lovely couple (the man looks like Carl Barron) who have three young children (two boys and a girl) and two cats (one black and white, and the other gray and arthritic). They all (with the possible exception of the cats) speak English as well as French, and the children are very cute and well mannered in addition to being prone to intermittent periods of non-intrusive shrieking.
Their house is one of many old, tall, narrow houses joined together (i.e. no spaces between buildings) along the entire length of the street, at the top of which is the enormous, grand City Hall. There is nothing on the outside to identify it as a B&B, and the front door is bright blue with a Christmas wreath hanging from it. They have a huge, beautiful Christmas tree in their living room on the ground floor, and were baking Christmas cookies and listening to Christmas carols when we arrived.
If you count the half-levels, our room is actually on the fifth floor! It is a lovely, large room with a view out into the backyards of other houses around the block, and a bookshelf housing a collection of English and French language books – anything from an entire Ellis Peters series to the Half Blood Prince! Add to all this the fact that we have unlimited free WiFi (which we are making the most of to keep you up to date while we can!), and you can see why we have decided that this is the best B&B we have ever stayed in!!!
After we checked in here yesterday afternoon, we somehow managed to spend a couple of hours reading the books on offer and/or napping. We then got rugged up into our warmest clothes, including our snowboarding thermals, and ventured out into the night to explore the Christmas markets. By the way, despite what I said yesterday, we found out that it hasn't actually snowed here recently; it's just that the frost is so heavy it looks like snow!! At this rate we might just be getting a “cold Christmas” rather than a white Christmas!
Anyway, we parked our car on the roof of a 10-storey car park that had a nice view of the city in all directions, including a beautifully lit Ferris wheel some distance away, where we assumed the Christmas markets were. After a short walk, we came across part of the markets, and discovered the following sights and sounds over the next few hours...
* Lots of market stalls - little wooden huts, hung with Christmas lights and decorations, housing displays of various goodies and wares on offer...
* Toys, crafts, baubles, glass ornaments, Babushka dolls, chess sets, clay figurines, little painted wooden boxes, candles, etc...
* Belgian waffles, Belgian fritters (like hot potato chips), enormous woks of potato au gratin (our dinner), assorted handmade chocolates (our entree and dessert), lollipops, etc etc etc!
* Mulled wine (i.e. hot wine with citrus and spices – a delicious European Christmas specialty), various tropical fruit and liquor punches, champagne...
* Huge, stately old buildings and quaint cobbled streets...
* Buskers... one guy playing really nice panpipe music with relaxation-type backing, and an American-Indian-costumed trio playing a couple of bamboo flutes/recorders and 1.5-metre long panpipes!
* ...And the most awesome carousel we've ever seen!
Evidently, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite the fact that Brussels doesn't even seem to rate a mention in discussions of Europe's biggest and best Christmas markets – Vienna and Germany must really put on a show!!!!
Following is a little description of the most spectacular and highly pleasant surprise of our evening...
As we walked around a corner and suddenly found ourselves in the incredible Grand Place, the square was packed full of people and an operatic light and sound performance was currently underway! The Grand Place is a very large city square bordered on four sides by huge, amazing old buildings. In the square was a large Christmas tree covered in lights that changed colours, and a life-size nativity scene that included the entire barn. You can see three sides of the square in the panorama shot below. However, the side that I had my back to while taking that panorama had by far the most impressive building of all - the 15th century town hall - which you can see in most of the other photos below!
The costumed performers, professional opera singers, were on one of the balconies of the town hall, singing (according to a sign we saw) a contemporary requiem (not sure on the terminology; does that mean one song or a whole collection?). There were massive speakers so that the music, sound effects and singing filled the huge open space. Coloured spotlights were shining on the performers and the entire building from the far side of the square, which explains why the photos show the town hall with a variety of different colour themes! Anyway, it was wonderfully dramatic and very very impressive!
A panorama showing the other three sides of the square...
A video compilation of the square during and after the performance...
The funny thing was that as we left the markets and started driving home, we finally came across the section with the Ferris wheel, and it looked like that may have been the “real” markets! There is also an ice skating rink somewhere there, but we didn't see it. So perhaps we only saw the fringes after all. :)
Anyhow, I was also going to write about today, which was thoroughly enjoyable in a completely different way, but I feel I have written enough for tonight! I'll be back soon! Please keep the comments coming as we really enjoy hearing from you. :)
Bonne nuit!
1 comment:
Gidday Ben & Anna from Wotabuga Station Gin Gin,
We have been quietly reading your blog here from the beginning. Now you've gone and flushed us out, look out!
Ben, you must be feeling the cold. I like those ear flaps - they're just big enough to...no, we won't go there.
Can't say we're hot here but it was a very comfortable 24 degrees during the day.
Thank you both for the effort you're going to keeping us all in the picture. We do feel as though we're sharing your experiences. Sharing some of that food would be good too!
Merry Christmas,
The Murfs
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