Every summer, Brussels goes nuts with flowers. In even-numbered years, the Grand-Place is given a giant carpet of flowers that is incredibly stunning and makes for impressive photos. So of course I visit in an odd-numbered year, when they fill the main rooms in the City Hall with floral displays.

Just a bunch of photos this time – as you can tell, the interior wasn’t very well lit, and it was a bit too crowded to really set up a good shot.

Presented by the Mexican Embassy

The main Council Chamber

This room is used for civil weddings.

I should have “borrowed” some of the photos from the official website….

It’s also possible (for a separate fee) to clamber up a staircase to the top of the tower for some awesome views. If I were younger, and didn’t have to think about whether going up or down would be more risky….

For something completely different, I went to the Museum of Musical Instruments, which boasts one of the largest collection of them in the world.

I was stupid; in my eagerness to get inside, I completely forgot to get the audio tour – which lets you hear the sound of the instruments you’re looking at….

It is a really cool place; you can see odd instruments from around the world and back in time, as well as the history and how the modern / contemporary versions of things were developed.

No sign of the Ocarina of Time….

The layout is a bit scattershot; you can be looking at Renaissance lutes and turn a corner to find a display of accordions. Plenty of stuff on Adolphe Sax and the development of brass instruments, of course.

They do get up to the present day, with displays of record players and electronic instruments. I chuckled at the “Do Not Touch” sign next to the theremin – you’re not supposed to touch it when you play it.

This is an unusual item. For a brief time in the 1940s and early 1950s, wire recorders were used for recording sounds, like dictation or field reports. It’s easy to think of them as tape recorders – they were used the same way – but the technology is a little different.

The most fun I had was looking at some of the goofy instruments they had on display, like this Stroh Violin. I’m guessing the horn is used instead of the wooden body as a sound amplifier.

Silly looking, isn’t it.

Surely this was just a novelty (I fully expected to see one of PDQ Bach’s instruments, like the tromboon, somewhere in the collection). No one ever seriously played it….

He was quite good.

Next time, a few more places to visit before I wrap this up