The oldest looking building on the Grand-Place is not actually the oldest one; it just looks that way. The “King’s House” used to be a special residence for government officials; now it’s the museum of the City of Brussels.

Of course it’s worth a look.

There’s the usual stuff about how the original settlement was at the farthest navigable spot on the Senne River, how the town grew to a city, it’s importance in trade, etc. And how the river turned into little more than an open sewer (that flooded on occasion), so it was decided that the best thing to do would be to cover it over.

For the post-WWII era, there’s stuff on urban planning and development, and the city’s new importance as a capital of the EU. The highlight (for me) of the history section, I suppose, was a model of the city in the 13^th century.

Best shot I could get

One of the special exhibits was on the history of some regional ball games – “Balle au Tamis” and “Balle Pelote”. Evidently, they were HUGE in the pre-WWII years. They fell out of favor, since they need a LOT of space to play. Still can’t find any decent explanation of what the games involved. Seems like weird forms of volleyball.

Another important exhibit is on the famous “Mannekin Pis”, that statue of a peeing toddler that everyone has to see when they visit the city. Well, the original is in the City Museum – the one out on the street corner is a copy. The copy was made and put there after the statue was stolen for the second time.

The boy is pretty much a symbol of the city, and keeps popping up all over the place:

I note that the magazine cover at center left is one of the extremely rare mentions of Belgium and WWII that I saw.

People like to dress him up for special occasions; there’s a whole collection of costumes at the City Museum and the special gallery a few blocks away seen on the left here:

I was more interested in the mural than the museum.

I confess to being a little disappointed in the museum; but I suppose that they are constrained by the size of the building.

You will also note in that second photo the flowers hanging from the wire crossing the street. I saw a lot of that; it seems I visited during Flower Time.

More on that in the next post, when I visit the City Hall.