close to Grand Place in Brussels, walk by at your leisure, won't cost you anything
Disadvantages:
it's teeny tiny, you expect more
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Belgium isn't really famous for much. Well, it's got Jean Claude van Damme, Hercule Poirot and Tin Tin, the European Parliament, a large variety of beer and chocolates but that's about it. Then there's its capital city, Brussels, famous for even less - apart from the ill named Brussel sprouts (that have nothing to do with Brussels, just an unfortunate sharing of names). However, even the most uninitiated will know at least a couple of things about Brussels. They have the Atomium, Grand Place (which is really not that grand) and the famous Manneken Pis.
The latter is the subject of this review. And, due to the nature of the review, I will be using a splattering of the word wee throughout the review. This subject just begs for its use.
Manneken Pis (translated as little man wee) is famous well beyond the boundaries of both Brussels and Belgium. The statue in question is that of a wee small boy urinating into a basin. It's one of Belgium's best known landmarks.
There is no one explanation how this little boy and its statue came into existence, history still tells a number of different tales. A lot of them have to do with war and how a little boy weed onto opposing troops and them losing the war. Other stories tell of a boy urinating on a burning fuse and thus stopping a large bomb go off, saving the city from destruction.
Whatever the history, there's a wee little statue in Brussels on the corner of l'Etuve & Rue du Chêne, just a little walk from Grand Place attracts a lot of tourists all throughout the year.
Considering its reputation, you would expect a statue of a life size boy piddling into a basin. My friend Michael and I went to Brussels the other week and went to look for this statue. We found it alright. When we arrived at the corner of the two streets all we could do was look at each other and wonder what all the fuss was about. The bronze statue is tiny. It's even smaller than I had imagined - and I knew it wasn't big. And I was totally disappointed that the wee guy was not naked as I had expected. He was dressed in a little outfit I didn't care finding out about. I took a couple of pictures but we didn't stay long. After all, there really isn't much to see apart from a dressed up little small statue of a boy weeing into a basin. And yes, it really that THAT small.
I'm sure most of the souvenir shops around the statue have larger (and ultimately tackier) versions of Manneken Pis on sale. It's not really worth the visit. But you have to do it while you are in Brussels, it's one of the things on everyone's 'to do' list.
I wasn't even tempted to buy the Mannekin Pis in chocolate in one of the ever present chocolate shops and devour it at my pleasure. I was just totally underwhelmed by the experience.
By all means, go and visit the fountain, it's a must do thing when in Brussels. After all, there isn't really that much to do and it will kill a little bit of time while you are there, trying to figure out why on earth you decided to spend the day in Belgium's (and Europe's) capital city.
I doubt good weather and sunny skies will make up for the small statue that caused such a major disappointment.
By all means, go and visit the wee guy, but don't expect much then you won't be disappointed.
