BRUSSELS - CINQUANTENAIRE

The Parc du Cinquantenaire ("Park of the Fiftieth Anniversary") is a large public, urban park of 30 ha (74 acres) in the easternmost part of the European Quarter in Brussels.

Most buildings of the U-shaped complex which dominate the park were commissioned by the Belgian government under the patronage of King Leopold II for the 1880 National Exhibition commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian independence. 

During successive exhibitions in the same area, more structures were added. The centrepiece triumphal arch was erected in 1905. 

On sunny  days lunch breakers stream into the park to claim their prime picnic spot on the stretched out lawns. And while shade is provided by a u-shaped pillared building with beautiful finishes in iron and glass.

The park is very beautiful and the Cinquantenaire impressive ! I have been there several times, but these pictures I took a few years ago. Nothing has changed. 

View over the whole site

built by King Leopold II for the 50th anniversary of Belgium

Beautiful sculptures

On top of the arch is  another impressive sculpture

The ceiling when you go through one of the gates

The view from the Cinquantenaire towards Tervueren where is the African Museum

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MY WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 28

When I became a grandma four years ago, I had bought a lot of baby things to keep here, to avoid the young parents a whole removal when they would come for a visit.



Unfortunately my good intentions, where not appreciated at all, most of the Baby stuff was never used so finally after having given away a lot of things to other young parents, I went to the charity shop for battered women and brought the rest there. At least the babies of the victims can benefit.

Together with my friend Ilona we went to the "Cinquantenaire".



In one of the wings was the famous exhibition of the grotto of Lascaux which had been discovered in France and showed wall paintings and reproductions of animals and people from 20.000 years ago ! It was a wonderful and very interesting exhibition. I will write about in a later post.

I visited my friend Dominique,who had an eyelid surgery. With getting older her eyelids had dropped and hindered her view. She wore sunglasses when she opened the door, and then she showed me her eyes ! I told her that she had the perfect make up for Halloween, which made her laugh. The lids were swollen and reddish blue. The surgery was done in a couple of hours and she could return home after that. It is considered as a malformation and the health insurance pays for it. In a week she will have beautiful big blue eyes !

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

1. I started the week by cleaning the guestroom because my friend Claudie from the South of France would arrive the next day to stay with us for 5 days. Then I went shopping and filled in the fridge so that  she wouldn't starve.

2. To discuss practical things for our trip to the Lake Geneva I went with Nicole to Dominique and we discussed what to take along, and we also inspected her trunk (booth) to decide if we would take suitcases or rather backpacks.We had a lot of fun with making plans.

3. Poor Claudie arrived late evening after 9 pm, her train was nearly 2 h late and she missed her correspondence to Brussels. The poor girl arrived rather tired after having spent almost 12 h mostly in the stations ! The normal travel time is about 5 h !

4. As at half past 11the next morning she was still sleeping, I finally went into her room ! She wasn't sleeping anymore but thought it was too early to get up, the alarm clock on the bedside table showed a quarter past 8 ! I had completely forgotten the alarm clock and it was set 2 h behind ! The day started with a lot of laughter.

The weather was wonderful and we had our lunch in the garden.



Then I took her to the Cinquantenaire park. King Leopold II created the park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of Belgium in 1880. The park covers 30 hectares (74 acres) of classic gardens with hedges of laurels and a symmetric plan. The museums of Art and History (Cinquantenaire Museum), Aviation, the Army and Military History and Autoworld are situated here.

We didn't go into the museums but rather walked through this beautiful park and had a look on the European institution buildings which start from there. 



On the way back I showed Claudie where I had lived with my parents, the church I married and our first apartment. Then we went to the nearby located park, where we had walked our baby boy, fed the swans and geese  before we moved to Waterloo. The old Brasserie was still there and we sat there and enjoyed the sunshine. Unfortunately the Brasserie had been modernized and was all in modern black and white furniture inside, which really looked awful and didn't fit at all with the untouched old outside of the building. Then we drove home put on our kaftans and had supper outside, Mr. G. was in his best shape and served us better then a waiter ! The day ended with a little movie on TV.

5.



For our next excursion Dominique joined us and we first went to our little Greek restaurant and had a very good meal ! Then I drove them to the other end of Brussels, where we took the Waterbus (I wrote about it here) and started our cruise on the Canal. The ship was quiet full and at the last stop before the ship turned around to go back we stepped out and visited a group of amateur painters who were sitting there painting the landscape.



Above you can see our cruise ship and some of the landscapes of Brussels we saw from the water. Our guide told us that  the ugly new buildings are called "little Manhatten". We had a lot of fun on the ship and laughed a lot with two other ladies who told us some of the stories of the new builds where the architect had forgotten the lift in a building of over 15 floors and another one where they had forgotten to connect the building to the canalisation.

At 5 pm the cruise was finished and we returned home, just in time before it started to rain !