(Part 5) Belgium the Premium: The Bustle in Brussels!!

- July 21, 2019, Sunday.

- On our last day in Belgium, my mom and I explored the center of Brussels - and what better way to spend our last day than joining the crowd in celebrating the Belgian National Day!! It is held on July 21 and celebrates the day when Belgium became its own kingdom in 1831. Normally, celebrations across the city involve heavy military presence. Not only is this because of the high-ranking dignitaries and royal people attending various functions across Brussels in relation to the celebration, but also because it is also a time for people to get up close and personal with the people in the military.

- That morning, my mom and I rode the train to Parc metro station (lines 1 and 5) to visit the Royal Palace, built some time between the late 1800s and the early 1900s, and is one of the official residences of the Belgian royal family. I wanted to take a chance and see if it was going to be open to visitors, but unfortunately, it will start opening its doors to visitors the day after the holiday. The palace is open to the public every summer when the royal family is away, just like in Luxembourg (click here), and it always opens its doors to everyone after the Belgian National Day.

Royal Palace of Brussels.

- Though sad that we didn't get to have a chance to see the interior of the palace, we walked down the street and joined the party! Well it wasn't actually much of a party, but rather, a fabulous display of Belgian military culture! Tourists and citizens were allowed to interact and play some games with the military people, and were even allowed to go up/inside military tanks and helicopters just to get a feel for the daily life of being in the Belgian forces. We also saw the 19th-century Palais de Justice (Law Courts of Brussels), the largest building built during its down. I was a bit sad, however, as the scaffolding was blocking its golden sheen. The court has been renovated frequently in the recent years to strengthen its structure.

Military helicopter.

I actually wanted to try going up a tank but my legs were still too tired from too much walking the previous days, and I was afraid I wouldn't fit inside because I'm fat.

"Making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I'm homebound tenenenenenene, tenene, tenenenenene~~."

More tanks.

Palais de Justice.

- From the Royal Palace, I made a bad decision of walking several blocks to the Cinquntenaire when I could have just taken the metro to Schuman (lines 1 or 5), since the distance looked close in the map. Before entering the Cinquantenaire, I had a brief photo stop in front of Le Berlaymont. Le Berlaymont is an X-shaped building built in the 1960s that serves as the headquarters of the European Commission. A visit inside the building is possible after reserving a tour slot through its website (click here.)

Le Berlaymont.

Hello me.

- We later entered the Cinquantenaire (also called "Jubel Park"). It has a massive U-shaped structure in the middle that was build in the 1880s during the 50th year of the country's independence (so you see, even our itinerary for the day coincidentally matched the holiday the country is celebrating!) The crown glory of the U-shaped structure is its "triumphal arch" that was built a few decades later than the rest of the original buildings in the area which were built as exhibition spaces. Today, these exhibition spaces have become various museums (i.e. Art & History Museum, Autoworld, and the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History,) so it's easy to spend a whole day in the Cinquantenaire Park.

Majestic!

Brussels' "Arc de Triomphe."

From another angle.

- The southern side of the U-shaped structure is the Art & History Museum, formerly known as the Cinquantenaire Museum. It was renamed in 2016 in order to distinguish it from the other museums in the Cinquantenaire Park, and in order to let people know what the museum is all about through its new name. The Art & History Museum looks like a regular-sized museum from the outside, but its maze-like layout (at least it seemed to me) hides rooms and halls full of treasures from around the world! It is comparable to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in terms of content, but surely the Met is a lot larger. I loved its extensive collection on Egyptian and Roman art, though I also appreciated its humble yet comprehensive galleries on Asian and American art.

Art & History Museum.

Hall to the various galleries on European art.

Tapestries.

Cloisters.

My best friend from Rapa Nui (Easter Island.)

American art.

Olmec from ancient Latin America!!

See the floor? That's one massive Roman mosaic floor!!

Egyptian mummy.

Of course, can't miss the Indian gallery!! Hello from me and Shiva as the Lord of Dance (Nataraja.)

Tibetan thangka art.

- We later rode the train to Brussels Centraal Station to have a final walk-through of Brussels' streets. Plenty of people were wearing their best Belgium-themed clothes and accessories to celebrate Belgian National Day, while they were also showing their warmest smiles and biggest laughs. It was perhaps the nicest day in Belgium, but the saddest for me. My mom and I had to leave Belgium that evening, and took an Uber to the airport after resting in the hotel in the afternoon. However, Brussels decided to be kind to us, as our car passed by the Castle of Laeken, or Laeken Palace, and the nearby Museums of the Far East. Laeken Palace is the official residence of the royal family. The Museums of the Far East, located in a park beside Laeken Palace has distinct ornate Japanese and Chinese pagodas; the museums are currently closed for renovation, and some of the items from these museums can be found in the Art & History Museum in Cinquantenaire Park. Despite this, the vicinity of the museums makes a nice backdrop for photos. These were the last "gifts" of Brussels to my mom and me just before leaving for Manila (unfortunately I wasn't able to take photos of them even from the car as I didn't expect that we'd pass by them.)

Oh cool, a ceiling full of Smurfs outside Centraal Station! ("The Smurfs" was made in Belgium, and remains to be one of Belgium's biggest contribution to global popular culture!)

Thank you, Belgium!! (Military planes on on their way to the palace for an air-stunt presentation.)

- After a week in Belgium I can say that it definitely is a highly underrated country with so much royal history to back up the country's splendor. I do hope that more people can visit Belgium and see what the country has to offer - beyond fries, waffles, and chocolate!!

- Please don't forget to read all about my other adventures in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg here!!

THE NETHERLANDS

Part 1, Amsterdam: here, and here

Part 2, Zaanse Schans: here

Part 3, The Hague/Den Haag: here

Part 4, Haarlem: here

Part 5, Hoorn: here


BELGIUM

Part 1, Brussels: here

Part 2, Ghent/Gent: here

Part 3, Bruges/Brugge: here

Part 4, Antwerp: here


LUXEMBOURG: here