Advent in Brussels
Christmas lights hang across the streets, on signposts, on man-made and nature-created trees and on the roofs of all the Plasir d’Hiver market stalls. Crèche dominate squares and churches. Welcome to Advent in Brussels. The sky is grey, rainy and bleak, but the atmosphere in the city bursts with life and art. Street musicians play everything from rap, jazz, rock to classical tunes, not many of which have anything to do with the holiday season, but rather with creating space for living public art. Graffiti on the street housing walls competes with real wall art infusing a vibrant social political thrust to the visual aspects of this architecturally rich city. I’m only here for two days so it was a very pleasant surprise to find the city so festive.
The Plasir d’Hiver markets are throughout the historic center of Brussels, just not directly in the Grand Place. They surround the area around the central square, but the square itself is dedicated to a large Christmas tree and crèche. The surrounding Flemish Baroque structures form a rather magnificent backdrop to the attributes of the holiday season. All the normal tourist activities continue, including free city tours that start right in front of the City Museum, and souvenir shops that stay open well past the time normal stores close, but the streets are clearly filled not just with foreign tourists, but with local citizens enjoying the sites, sounds, and smells of their city in the winter.
The market stalls sell everything from Belgian chocolates and jellied fruits to waffles to hand-carved Christmas ornaments, the typical hats, scarves and gloves of unknown origin, to some for me rather surprising items including champagne with truffles, escargot, tacos (!), and Portuguese ceramic ware. Glühwein from Belgium and the Alsace is in plentiful supply, as is Hot Chocolate for the younger crowd. Among the most interesting markets I stumbled upon were the ones near St. Catherine’s, one that had a huge ferris wheel at the end of the market along with an ice monster cave, a sort of haunted house in the shape of a giant worm, and the other had a sound and light show projected on the façade of the church. The images varied from woods to the Jesse Tree to ocean scenes and then designs that I couldn’t quite associate with living beings, but were nonetheless fascinating.
The street musicians weren’t the only ones offering public music, but in contrast to them, in the churches and in the markets local choirs were singing carols and holiday related melodies. Some were better than others. In Notre Dame du Sablon there was an organist practicing for an evening concert with a soprano with a truly angelic voice, while in the Cathedral a local Spanish choir vied with me for singing off-key, but loudly and with gusto. While it wasn’t necessarily pleasant to the ears, it was heart-warming to see the passion with which the songs were belted out. Not far away, in front of a medieval tower encased in a modern hotel by a number of stalls selling Canadian products, from maple syrup to socks and hot cider, there was a local city choir that sang Christmas songs from at least five different countries in the time I stood listening to them. They were worth listening to. Perhaps the most amusing musical rendition, however, came from a mechanical moosehead on one of the market stalls swaying and singing ‘Ihr Kinderlein Kommet.’
Crèche are not just in the main squares, but also, naturally, in the churches. The Cathedral had a display of crèche from various cultures that took up the entire side aisles of the church. Some of the most unusual were from Japan, with a temple and Mt. Fuji in the background, Ecuador with a Toucan shining like the star of Bethlehem, Libya with the setting in the desert, and Portugal set in a vineyard. The displays were a testament to the universality of the faith in hope for saving grace.
The festival brought all social stata together. While the main shopping district has Tiffany’s and Chanel across the street from Quality Burger, and near the Grand Place vintage stores sell clothing by weight, people from all walks of life and countries enjoyed being together outside in the Christmas light-filled evening nights. It is no wonder that many of the Flemish painters were obsessed with light. The skies otherwise are often dark and grey and the light, formerly from candles now from LED, creates a stark contrast that again, the festivities diminish so that the differences recede and common humanity shines through. This is an appropriate city for the head of the EU.
As a side note, the public transportation system is excellent and while the center of town is best seen by foot, the less expensive hotels are a bit further away and it is good to take the metros, trams or busses. The cost regular meals in the center were comparable to most other European cities, but the cost for coffee, a pastry and a bottle of water was considerably cheaper, ca. E 4, which is close to what I usually spend on just the coffee in Salzburg. I don’t know what the city would be like in the middle of the summer, but can recommend an Advent trip to this vibrant architecturally fascinating city.
