What is seen, what is hidden.....

It was a bit sad to find out we couldn’t go the the tram museum today, as that was going to be Andrew’s chosen venue… but at this time of year it’s not open till the weekend. Instead we went back into town on another interesting walk, going into a couple of churches… Our Lady of Succour was really delightful, made of small stone blocks, and with a scary crack in the cupola.  What interests me very much is that even in an almost-circular church like this, the basic pattern of a nave/tunnel/access and then a triple holy-space is absolutely discernible, just as at Newgrange in Ireland, and that is 7000 years old.   

Strolling along we admired a laundrette with a huge ironing machine...

   

and another of the city's gay-friendly zebra crossings

Then we went a short distance on to the church of St Nicolas. Now this saint is one of my favourites. We have a lot of St Nicolas churches in Kent, all near the sea or rivers. He is a version of our dear old Father Christmas, and has various interesting legends about him including providing dowries for poor girls and bringing back to life some pickled boys.  

There is a super statue of him in the Brussels church, which used to have the River Senne right outside the door (a typical location for a St Nicolas church, btw), till it was all covered over in the 19th century. It has pleasingly ancient origins and a post-war facade on the west front. All good. Not so good was the behaviour of a warden of some kind who not only shouted out for silence in a very aggressive and unnecessary way, but threw out of the church three old people, one in a wheelchair, because he didn’t like the old lady’s phone making a noise.  No service was in progress and this was an officious an unchristian act.

  

However our coffee in the sun was restorative, and from there we went back to the Grand Place and the Tourist Office to find out how to get to a new art centre in an old Citroen factory by the canal.  Our route was past the Bourse (Stock Exchange), a monstrously expensive building now redundant, with huge columns, pediments, stairs, statues etc. All this was paid for by Belgium’s plunder of the Congo, a particularly savage and nasty story. (And yes, I know, Britain hardly has an unblemished record regarding colonialism).

While we had our coffee in the sun, we saw the bike police stopping mopeds in a very efficient trap, and later we saw the car police moving the street beggars on. I suddenly thought, these women are not free, not choosing to beg.  I thought - whatever it looks like, they are part of a gang managed (probably terrorised) into working the various pitches.  I was reminded of the truly horrible begging set-up in Albania, where the gang-masters are fully in view, and the poor women are carrying drugged babies around to rouse the pity of tourists.   I wondered if I would see the same here, and sure enough…… 

 

We had lunch by the Bourse, with a friendly waiter from Bangla Desh pleased to chat. Moules frites was my choice, and I was not the only one!

We strolled through the pretty St Katherine’s Square and on to the Canal… and there in the sun was the Kanal Brut. 

This was in use as a car repair factory and showroom till it was sold to the local authority about 3 years ago. It is HUGE. As part of a project run by the Centre Pompidou in Paris it is now in use as an arts venue, so it has a lot (really a lot) of installations to see - a very long walk round!  It will close in July for a huge refurbishment, and then open again fully in about 2023.  

    

It has some wonderful things on show and for sale (too expensive for me!).  We loved the videos of children's games from round the world, the British chairs, the 3-D printed artefacts, the huge rather sinister Jean Tingueley installation, the OPEN signs....   The main glory is the building itself, which is so pure and industrial, and immense.  

    

I was thrilled to find some Hooked Diamond bags in the shop - again, far too expensive for me, and apparently made by an artist from Morocco... I loved them.  They will be part of future Goddess Exhibitions in Faversham, even if only as photographs.

  

And with a curtsey to the old car showroom function of the building we spotted a classic of French car design.... but not all was as it seemed....

    

We came home on the tram, which was some compensation for the lack of tram museum. We had a Moroccan tea and cream cake, and bought a take-away supper from a fish restaurant up on Stalingrad, and here we are on our last night.