Poor Brussels

Tellingly, I took only one photo in Belgium. On my iPhone. It was of a chocolate covered apricot, painted delicately to look like a bird’s egg. That pretty much sums up the extent of the inspiration.

Our enjoyment of these European cities appears to have a direct correlation with how integrated the city’s ‘old town’ is with its day to day life. Walking into the Brussels ‘old town’ is like walking into Disneyland. Or a section of Willy Wonka’s vast chocolate factory gone horribly wrong. Bright. Shiny. Garish.

Off the main square, down a Gyros infested alley, we find a blonde dressed as a sailor, an electric keyboard and a synthetic backing track. The sailor is tunelessly serenading the hostages – “And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYIIIIIIIIIIII, will always luf yooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuoooouuuuuuuuu…Will always luf yooooooouuuuuuooo….”

It’s enough to put you off your Gyros. And your mussels. Did I miss something? Since when is a pot of steaming mussels the national dish of Belgium?

Lonely Planet (groan) warns us, in its infuriatingly world weary dreadlocked tone, not to ‘make the mistake of judging it on day one or, worse still, in the first hour.’ Consider the warning to have fallen on deaf ears LP. Belgium, you have been judged.

I am reminded of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Did we brush up against its rough, round leg and assume that Belgium is ‘very like a tree’? Did we grasp its strong and winding trunk to surmise that it is ‘very like a snake’? No doubt we did.

But that’s not all a bad thing. A high is only ever relative. And if there were no Brussels on this trip, then how would we appreciate the Parises and the Amsterdams?

Plus, it has added a new verb to our vocab. To ‘Brussel’ is now to ‘promise much and deliver little - plus chocolate’. Quite a handy little word to have.