Category Archives: atomium

4th March 2017 – HANNAH’S FITBIT …

… tells me that we walked over 11 miles today. And I’m supposed to be ill too! You would never think so.

Last night was a bad night as far as I was concerned. It took me a while to drop off to sleep and I kept on waking up during the night, like at 03:00 and 06:00. At 07:00 the alarm went off and so I crawled into the shower for a really good soak (I didn’t have the energy to do that yesterday evening) and to wash my clothes from yesterday.

Breakfast started at 08:00 and although I was 5 minutes early, I wasn’t the first person down there. It was a good breakfast too and for a change I managed to eat something realistic.

Hannah was having a lie-in so it was getting on for 10:00 when she came a-knocking on my door, and then we headed off to the metro station at Brussels Midi.

And here we had our first set-back in that there is a cosplay convention in the town and the Metro was swamped with cosplayers. They were holding up all of the Metro trains so that they could set these people on their way.

Our second setback was once we were on our way, the Metro broke down and we had to alight. What we thus did was to cross the tracks to the other platform and go the long way around the circle to the Simonis station.

At the Simonis we took the old Bus 13 – the one that I used to take back home again. We alighted at the woods and went for a tramp therein (he got away unfortunately) but we didn’t have sight of a parrot as we did when Terry and Liz were here in 2011. Our walk took us past my old apartment at Expo and then round the corner to catch the bus 84.

At Heysel we had our third setback – in that the little shopping precinct there where there were all of the cafés, it was closed for refurbishment.

This led us nicely on to our fourth setback – Mini-Europe, which was what Hannah had really been hoping to see, was closed for refurbishment too.

But never mind – there was always the Atmomium. But with all of the people having come out today for the cafés and for Mini-Europe, there was nothing else to do except visit the Atomium. And so the queue was all the way down the street. That was our fifth setback.

And so we went down to the café at the bottom of the hill, and true to form, our sixth setback was that it was closed. We eventually found a café so that we could have a coffee.

A tram took us to the Tour Japonais and the Chinese Pagoda, and that was closed too. Setback number seven.

But never mind, we waled down into town past the Royal Greenhouses, the Royal Palace and the monument to King Leopold, past the Chapel of St Anne and the Riding Stables. We stopped at the Royal church at Laeken, to find that closed too. But it was 13:50 and it opened at 14:00 so we waited.

The caretaker turned up on time and we could see the interior of the church. It’s the first time that I’ve ever been in there too. It’s quite impressive too and I’ll be back at some point to take some photographs.

Down the hill to the tram stop and we took the 93 in the direction of the city centre. But then we had a tram breakdown (the eighth setback) and had to jump on board a bus. We jumped off the bus so that we could walk past the huge abandoned church of Schaerbeek, and then down the road to the old Botanical Garden where we stopped for a drink in the café there

There was an exhibition of photos taken by some Austrian of ruins that he had discovered of the German extermination programme of the mentally-ill children during the Holocaust. as I have said before, it’s quite simply not right that just one group of people has claimed the Holocaust as its own. All kinds of minorities were targeted by the Germans and focusing on just one group devalues the lives of all of the others.

The Metro and a bus took us out past the little apartment that I had at the Place Meiser and to the Tir National where we have been before, to see the graves of the Belgian Resistance who were executed by the Germans.

By now we were hungry so a Tram 25 took us all of the way round to Ixelles and the posh fritkot where I used to go when I lived at Marianne’s. And wasn’t it all delicious there, just as usual?

A bus 71 and then a tram 81 took us to Merode, and a walk through the Cinquantenaire took us to the Rond-Point Schuman where I showed her the European Institution buildings. But I was so disappointed that they were all in darkness. I hope that it isn’t symbolic.

We’re back here now and I’m stretched out trying to relax as I can feel my muscles tensing up. And I need to be fit for tomorrow as I have yet more walking to do.

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Sunday 23rd January 2011 – Today is Sunday of course

 … and that is of course a day of rest. And in our case, a day of sightseeing, as Liz and Terry have never visited Brussels before.

And so after a leisurely morning which actually involved a shower for yours truly, and a light lunch, we hit the streets.

liz terry messenger basilique sacre coeur koekelberg brussels belgiumFirst stop was the Basilique de Sacre Coeur at Koekelberg, the huge church on the heights to the North-West of the city that you can see clearly from my apartment.

Mind you, you couldn’t see it very well today because of the muggy weather. The view from here down to the city, usually quite spectacular, was a bit miserable today.

It’s been a while since I came to the Basilique though. The last time that I was there it was for a religious service with Marianne, and I took the collection. Since then, they have been waiting for me to bring it back. I did however manage to avoid being struck by a thunderbolt or whatever and that was something.

liz terry messenger atomium brussels belgiumFollowing on from there I took Terry and Liz on the tourist route that I used to follow when I did coach tours all around the sights. First stop has to be the Atomium, up at the top end of the Parc Roi Badouin.

From there, we even managed to go down the narrow street behind the railway station where all the railway workers’ wives wait in the window to spot their husbands finishing work, so that they can quickly put on the supper before they arrive home. But Liz and Terry were staggered by the cost of living here in Brussels, and so were not really surprised that the poor women could not afford to buy many clothes to wear and that what clothing they were wearing, they had grown out of a while back and couldn’t afford to replace with a larger size.

So tomorrow we are back at work. First job is to empty the rubbish and then clear out the third bedroom so that we can make a start on that. This will involve a trip to the shops (the first of a great many, I shouldn’t wonder) to buy one or two things that we forgot yesterday.

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