Our wanderings of Brussles continued, with a slightly more architectural focus this time. This cathedral reminded us very much of Notre Dame, and unusually it was free which was a nice novelty. It was up a slight incline, so maybe the 'hill' deterred the marauding hordes of tourists.
The first walls of Brussles (called 'eerste stadsomwalling' in Dutch) were built in the 13th century and encompassed about four km. They would have taken several decades to complete; built of solid stone, 10 metres high and at times over two metres of thickness. To add go this a defensive moat was also dug in front which could be flooded with water if needed. The problem with these impressive defences is the city soon outgrew their confines rendering them useless. In response to this a second wall was built and in 1782 the emperor Joseph II ordered the original walls to dismantled as they no longer served any purpose. Small parts of the old wall remain to this day however, including this tower, known ominously as 'the Black Tower' it was unfortunately backed by this ugly hotel building.
Another of the three peeing statues, this one of the animal variety.
There was meant to be a gorgeous flower market in the main square on Friday mornings but unfortunately there was some sort of event on, blocking roads, setting up stages and musical instruments and painting strange hexagons on the pavement. This apparently took precedence over said market and it was unfortunately not on that week.
Needing a respite from the unusually sunny weather, we headed to L'inattendu, a cute little cafe with reasonably priced drinks and interesting decor. I especially liked the wine bottle wall you can see in the far right corner and its Latin motto 'In vino Veritas'.
I however did not have wine, and stuck to trying Belgian and Dutch beer. Hoegaarden is possible to buy in New Zealand but it's so expensive I never do; it was a nice treat to drink it at an affordable price for once.
Brussles was known for a neighbourhood of art nouveau, which until that point I hadn't really known anything about (I freely admit I still really don't) but I could appreciate its style, somewhat quirky and very ornate.
We even went to an art nouveau cafe which was extremely pretty. The foyer was empty so we could take photos of the opulence of a bygone era.
It was interesting to note that much of the graffiti on the walls were in English, although I suppose everyone we came across spoke English so it was a pretty well used language. This graffiti struck me with it's brightness and starkness.
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