Brussels come down

Weve been back a week and things are quietening down - back into the rut again not helped by acting up for my boss next week. It looks like travel plans are on hold for the time being - I guess we'll wait and see but I think that a staycation is on the cards for the late summer and that'll be it for 2012. Hey ho.
We both enjoyed Brussels (slightly to my suprise I think)and its quirkiness. I hope that well be back in Belgium at some point - maybe the battlefields of Flanders or Bruges which is supposed to be very nice. I think because of its make up, its divided ethnicity that there will be very little language problems - everyone already speaks french and Flemish and I suspect that the French would rather speak English that Flemish and the Phlegms wuld rather speak English that French. There really is very little love lost between the two communities - I cant help but think of Kurt who I met a few years back in Tunisia who distained all things Francophile.
There were a couple od monuments (last weeks entry being a standout example) but it is a young country - A lot of the city streets are bilingual but in addition some of those in the city centre also have a second road sign based on the Belgian BD (Band Desinee) culture - particularly liked the Professor Calculus one on Rue Charles Bul. I managed to find three books in the local Brussels patois - although again theres a French version of the dialect and a Flemish one as well. We also visited the Belgian BD museum housed in a beautiful Horta Art Nouveau building - a wonderful exhibition space with plenty of light from its expanse of glass. We got the Brussels card which gave us free access to many of the city museums so we spent a bit of time in the company of Bruegal at the Royal Art Museum and then the Halle Gate and the Far East museum and then Autoworld and the national museum - not up to the british museum but a couple of the exhibits and Incan mummy and a statuette inspired Herge when writing the Broken Ear. Herge didnt leave belgium for a lot of his life so he wrote a lot from researach - it was rather special to see the things and the places that inspired him.

Jean de Selys Longchamps (1912-1943)

Very much enjoyed our little Brussels interlude with much to see, nice to find the Belgian quirky sense of humour still alive and strong. We spent a fair bit of time tracking Herge and his greatest creation Tintin with a very good itinary bought from the Tourist Office on Rue Royale.
Yes Tintins home is unnamed but Herge as any great artsist wrote what he know and what he knew was Brussels so the backdrop of middle 20th Century Brussels. We ventured out to Boitsfort where M's mum was brought up and found rather satonishingly that it was one tram stop, a 5 minute walk from Herges house where he lived from 1939 to 1953 in a period that saw him produce 10 books from King Ottokars Sceptre to Explorers on the Moon.
We also strolled along Avenue Louise - a major artery and shopping venue on the way back and saw the rather striking monument to Jean de Selys Longchamps, a Belgian nobleman who fled to France when Belgium was overrun by the German Army, after being interned by the Vichy authorities he escaped to Britain and was accepted for training as a pilot. He was posted to 609 Squadron which flew Hawker Typhoons. On 20th January 1943 he attacked the Gestapo building located on Avenue Louise in an unauthorised mission for which he was demoted to Pilot Officer but was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for the action.
He sadly didnt see the end of the war - dying on 16th August 1943 after his aircraft crash landed at RAF Manston.