July 22, 2017

July 22, 2017

We are on our last leg of our European tour. We packed up and took the train east to Brussels. Our hotel is not far from the Central Station. It is also not far from the World Heritage Grand Place. While small, it is one of the nicest and prettiest central squares in Europe. Destroyed by the French in 1695, all the buildings were rebuilt quickly by guilds in the same consistent Baroque style. I also took Aimee down the street to see Brussels’ iconic but tiny little statue, Mannekin Pis. We also stopped next door in the oldest shopping mall, the elegant 1845 Royal St Hubert Galleries.

Brussels is not only the capital of Belgium but also of the European Union. To discover more about this institution, we took the subway east a couple miles. The Parliament is closed for tours on Saturday, but there is an extensive Visitor Center called the Parlamentarium. Our audio-guide tour tells us about the organization and history of the EU. It arose out of the devastation of WWII. Realizing their desperate straits, France and Germany started the reconciliation process by forming a common steel and coal market in 1951. Italy and the Benelux nations quickly joined in. Its success led them to widen the scope and over time the number of countries. In 2002, they adopted the Euro currency.

The EU was a necessary step to help Europe compete in a new global world of superpowers. They have come a long way. Unfortunately they have much more work to do. It only gets more daunting from here. The difficulty is obvious just walking through the museum listening to the cacophony of 24 different languages, not to mention different cultures. The European Union governance is a huge stifling bureaucracy organized over and above those of the individual countries. It is our problems on steroids. I wish them luck.

We walked across the street to Leopold Park, once home to the Solvay Institute and the famed Solvay Conference. One of these historic buildings now houses the EU’s recently opened European History Museum. Aimee and I both groaned when we were handed the same electronic tablets we had in Lascaux. It has the same bugs that still have not been worked out. Neither one of us thought the museum particularly engaging. The section on WWI was the highlight as it adds to our recent time in Flanders. On display was the Serbian pistol that sparked the humanitarian disaster.


Back at the hotel, we had to hang out for awhile till it stopped raining. We walked the Grand Place again and then had dinner. I bought myself my last Belgian beer and Aimee her last Belgian chocolate.