Brussels
The Grand Place. Tourists and tour groups are just starting to arrive.
I can't even begin to count the number of times we walked through the Grand Place. It's a spectacular way to begin and end the day - the sculpture, the gilt details, the buildings themselves. But it's more than just a place to walk through - it's worth going into the buildings.
One of the buildings we visited was the Brussels City Museum with its collection of sculpture, ceramics, and various artifacts from all periods of Brussel's history:
above left: Face and fruit decorating a spandrel.
above-right: Stained glass with a representation of the archangel Michael.
left: In the ceramics gallery. Denise wanted much of what she saw here. I wanted the fish.right: A beautiful art nouveaux bust.
Of course we had to see the collection of Mannekin Pis costumes! I think every country in the world has donated at least one costume representative of their nation. Some mornings, if we set out early enough, we would see the Mannekin Pis being dressed for the day in a costume drawn from this collection.
above left: Denise in the Mannekin Pis Costume gallery.above-right: The Mannikin Pis isn't restricted to national costumes - many organisations have also donated costumes. This one represents Cleaners.
above-left: Guess which country donated this costume?above-right: We have no idea what this costume from Spain represents.