Dear Italy. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have thrown a model cathedral at the Pope and a sc...
Dear Italy. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have thrown a model cathedral at the Pope and a scarlet woman at Berlusconi?
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Brussels wouldn’t necessarily be most people’s first choice for a European city weekend break, with Amsterdam and Paris somewhat higher on the list, I suspect.
However, it does have one major advantage if you live in or around London – it’s one of the two direct destinations served by the Eurostar train, the other being Paris, and of the two end destinations, it’s the nearer (in fact it’s only about as far as Liverpool is from London).
So having saved up our Radio Times coupons to get a pair of £50 weekend returns*, this Saturday morning saw us bright (?) and early, boarding the 6.15 departure for Brussels from Waterloo. Two seconds after the doors locked, the group in the next seats realised they wanted Paris! Oops! Still, never mind, they got off at Lille, waited for the train behind, and everyone was happy.
(* There are other offers, including the saving of coupons from the “Daily Torygraph” – oh well, I suppose I could always keep the crosswords and put the rest on the nail in the outside toilet! – in the words of Ben Elton when he used to be funny, “Ooh, li’l bit o’ politics there!”).
THE TRAINS
For the technically minded, a Eurostar is an 18-car train with a power car at either end. Two of the 18 cars are buffet cars. It is capable of operating from the Railtrack 750v dc third rail, the Belgian National Railways 3000v dc overhead wire AND the French 25,000v ac overhead wire which starts on the British side of the Channel Tunnel, so it’s a bit of a smart-arse really.
Essentially it’s a French TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse – High Speed Train) scaled down to fit under our bridges and to allow for the fact that we always have platforms in Britain, which sets a finite and slimmer width limit.
It has a maximum operational speed of 300 kph (about 186 mph), but on a short-ish run like London-Brussels it only stretches its legs from the Tunnel to Lille, and from Lille to about 20 miles outside Brussels.
Lille is always an intermediate stop, Ashford, Kent is also a frequent stopping place, although not always. There is also a station at Calais – Fréthun, but in three return trips, I’ve never stopped there.
Economy class seating is either in pairs, “à la airline” with drop-down
trays or in blocks of 4, facing each other, with a dedicated window bay. The central table can be partly folded up to allow for ease of entry to your seat.
As you would expect, there are no opening windows (at 300 kph??!!) so with permanent “aircon” and double glazing, the whole thing glides along with very little input from the outside world – even the Tunnel is just a period of twenty minutes darkness. If anything, the impression of speed just isn’t there, which as an anorak, I find disappointing, but given that the French stretches were purpose built and levelled by laser, this isn’t so surprising.
Despite Railtrack’s best efforts to delay things as you mix it with stopping trains to Folkestone etc, the journey time is still less than 3 hours. In fact, if you get on at Ashford, you are only 1hr:40mins from Brussels!
Work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link is now well advanced (this will include overhead wires to the same specification as those used in France), and Waterloo’s days as the London terminus are numbered, as St Pancras is slated to be the new end-of-line. I gather the new route, with similar top speeds to those “on the other side” will shave about 20 minutes off the tedious hour it takes to get from London to Ashford. Not a “King’s Ransom” in time saved, but more a matter of national face-saving, and making the linking of cross-channel freight to our own overhead wire systems (i.e. just about everywhere but the south east) much easier than at present.
Mercifully, these wires ARE same voltage as in France.
ARRIVING IN BRUSSELS
Trains terminate at Gare Du Midi (Zuidstation) – the southern-most of Brussels’ three main stations. Don’t forget, everything is labelled in Flemish AND French here, so Antwerpselaan is also Boulevard d’Anvers and so on.
Even without either of these tongues under your belt, language is no problem as just about everyone in public service speaks English too.
Strictly speaking, this can’t be described as a weekend in Brussels, because the first thing we did was put all our bags in a locker for the day (2.8 euros), checked the train times and went off to Bruges (Brugge) for the afternoon.
Bruges is a 45-minute fast train ride away, stopping only at Gent in between. The fare for a day pass was a very reasonable 10 euros return, and even on a weekend timetable, trains ran half-hourly.
BRUGES
Obviously, with only an afternoon to play with, I can’t give you a full tourist low-down on Bruges.
Architecturally, Bruges is an almost intact medieval city, networked with canals. Somehow, it seems to have escaped the ravages from, and subsequent redevelopment after two world wars. It, along with Gent, gained fame and prosperity during the Middle Ages by producing high quality garments from English wool. Then the river silted up, and it was no longer a seaport. So they built another one about 10 miles away, and called it ………Zeebrugge!
We took one of the open boat rides (fortunately it was sunny although a mite windy on’t’ water), and marvelled at the “intactness” of the place, AND at the tri-lingual commentary which had a few of us smiling – I gathered that the French students on board thought the lilting accent of the resident Flem was funny too! Every now and then, he sounded just like “Stavros” with a bit of Ali G thrown in – know wha’ ah mean?!
Still, his English was somewhat more comprehensive than my Flemish, dank u.
Lunching out in Bruges was no problem at all, except for agonising for ages over where to eat – it really is a nice place, and cemented in my mind that I’m definitely coming back when I haven’t got a hotel in Brussels beckoning.
BACK IN BRUSSELS
With bags in the South Station and a hotel by the North Station, it was onto the metro for us. A 10-journey card costs 9 euros, and each “journey” is really one hour’s unlimited use of bus, pre-metro and metro. The “pre-metro” refers to the trams.
When it was decided to make Brussels the administrative capital of Europe, someone realised “But we don’t have a Metro – I know, let’s bury the trams” which is exactly what they did, followed up by the construction of two “real” metro lines.
Having been built in the seventies, the whole system has a bit of a run-down air to it, with very “last century” detail and trendy lighting of the day.
Surprisingly for a modern-day system, it’s not at all “disabled-friendly” with loads of steep stairs and only “up” escalators, many of which don’t work
The trams require quite a hike up to get into, although the actual trains aren’t as bad.
Public areas are graffiti’d and litter strewn, and the stairs to the street have that all-pervading smell of “impromptu toilet” about them!
Many of the stations concourses look like they were never finished in the first place.
Londoners will feel COMPLETELY at home here, and it’s almost a relief to find that we’re not alone!
Navigation of the system is easy enough, although a few more London-style diagrams wouldn’t go amiss. For example, in the metro ticket hall at Gare du Midi, there is not a metro map in sight! Signs telling you how to get to England, yes, around Brussels, no!
THE HOTEL
Our hotel, situated near Rogier metro station was the Boulevard Tulip, a monster of a converted office block costing £65 for bed and breakfast for two.
First impressions were very favourable, the public areas were quite sumptuous and the rooms were furnished to a high standard with a lot of maple-effect and wood-block floors. Then we realised that it was a tad cold in the room, 14 C to be exact. The heating fan was running and the thermostat was set at 25, but no, it was still cold. We persevered for 30 minutes, but nothing.
Ringing reception got us this series of ever-worsening replies.
“You’ve set the thermostat too high – give it another 30 minutes”, this despite my best attempts in French to show that I know a thing or two about central heating, “Mais il n’y a pas d’eau chaude dans le système chauffage centrale – le ventilateur ne souffle que de l’air froid” – “But there’s no hot water in the central heating system, the fan’s only blowing cold air”
“No one else is complaining” (except for the whole 11th floor, that is)
“The house engineer is working on it”
“We THOUGHT the house engineer was working on it, but he has gone home”
“We have telephoned another company, and they HOPE to be here today”
Resolving to do battle after we had been out for a meal, the heating was actually on when we got back.
Oh yes, and “No you can’t have an extra pillow, we don’t have any”
Apart from that, the hotel was fine, with a good array of hot and cold breakfast items to satisfy most needs!
EATING OUT
If anything, the Belgians are famed as more enthusiastic about their nosh than even the French, so finding decent food is never going to be a problem. Knowing where to start looking is the trick.
The square in the Sainte Catherine area is lined with (mainly) sea-food restaurants, although the nearby Petrus, where we finally ended up, was a less-specialised place, offering a much wider menu, including blinis with smoked salmon (and a smidge of caviar), and actual foie gras (the liver, not the pâté) in apple and calvados. Our main course (there were four of us) ranged from Turbot, via Duck in Honey and Almonds, to Lamb in a crust of Fines Herbes – not cheap, any of it, in fact with wine, we paid about £30 a head, but in London, you could pay this and get VERY disappointed.
Personally, I would avoid the rash of eateries in the vicinity of the famous Grand’ Place (Grote Markt) since I shun places with photos of the food on principle, and the waiter/touts are a bit of a nuisance. Doubtless, many of them offer good value fixed-price menus, but you’ve only got to show a bit of interest and suddenly you’re being shown to a table, à la Turkey.
However, if you’re in the mood, it’s a very lively spot, and there’s lots of people watching to be done from your gas-heated outdoor table!
"PEOPLE TO DO, THINGS TO SEE"
Here again, I can’t give you an exhaustive list of worthy sites, as much of my touring of Brussels is often done through a, what can I say, beer-induced glow.
Try a rich, dark Grimbergen on draught, or run the gauntlet of a Duvel – don’t be fooled by the fact that it LOOKS like a lager, at 8.5%, it’s as strong as some wines!
You could take metro line 1A out to Heysel Stadium to see the Atomium, a relic of the 1958 World Fair.
It’s a model of an (iron I think) atom which you can travel to the top of by lift – I gave it a miss this time - the viewing windows, which no-one considered how they were going to clean, are a bit pollution-ravaged forty-odd years on, to allow a decent photo through them, and many of the original escalators don’t work, not surprisingly. This is also the exhibition-hall district, and on the day we went, there was a Holiday Show on!
Nearby is the Bruparck, which I have seen described as a themeless theme park. OK, it’s got a multi-screen cinema, and a model village, but apart from some quiet (if you get there early) café/bars in which to enjoy the first Grimbergen of the day, not a lot else.
Far nicer, is to get the no. 23 tram all the way back through the city streets rather than ride the metro again. This is my idea of getting to see a city, not looking at worthy buildings, just travelling the streets, looking into windows and front gardens and just generally people-watching. Then it’s time for another Grimbergen, hic!
CONCLUSION
Sorry this hasn’t turned out to be anything like a travel guide to Brussels. I go for my reasons and rubber-necking isn’t high on the list.
Of course, if you read up on your subject before you arrive, there’s no need to fritter away even a short break on Grimbergen!
If you’re into art galleries, then of course, a capital city is the place to be. It’s just that they’re not my scene.(I’m reminded of a recent visit to Amsterdam. My mother-in-law was scandalised by the fact that we never went to the Rijksmuseum, even more so when we told her about the Sex Museum!)
Then of course, there’s the Mannekin Pis! Perhaps it’s him who sneaks off at night and waters all the stairs to the metro.
So anyway, there it is, my short break in Brussels, courtesy of Radio Times and Eurostar!
What I hope I have shown you, is how eminently “do-able” somewhere like Brussels is, as long as you get off your arse and get to Waterloo early – don’t forget, because of time differences, you lose an hour going there, so a 6.15 departure appears to take 4 hours getting there. With all this apparent ease in getting there, you don’t have to feel that you need to run yourself ragged seeing it all. After all, at these discounted prices, why not go next month as well?
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Witty review!! Off to Belgium in 3 weeks visiting Ostend, Bruges, Brussels and Ghent, so this was very valuable! Thanks...........Louise :-)
Morgenhund 04.05.2002 02:15
If travelling as a group then the 10 journey is good if you are a group making a total of 10 trips (eg. 5 people making two trips) although the day ticket is excellent value for the individual... Mike
christopherj84 30.03.2002 22:40
This is a very comprehensive opinion, well done, Chris.
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Advantages: Cheap, plenty of bars, good selection of resteraunts, historic city Disadvantages: Students, busy main street, not ideal for tourism (yet).
sibod 26.10.2006 ·
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