Category: European gardens

In Brussels Park

Cindy at enclos*ure4 Comments

I noticed the bare, pleached trees near the end of the taxi ride from the airport  — a double row of long limbs on high, grid supports.

As soon as we dropped our bags at the hotel (and after a mid-morning snack of Liege waffles), we walked back to Brussels Park.

The Parc de Bruxelles (or Warandepark in Dutch) is the largest urban park in the city center, as well as the oldest. A rectangle, it is capped on the north end by the Belgian Parliament (the park is on a north-east to south-west axis) and on the south end by the Royal Palace (below).

In the 12th century, it was the hunting ground for the dukes of Brabant. In 1774, Empress Maria Therese of Austria (the ruler of Brussels at that time) ordered that the space be turned into a French-style garden.

The original design by Barnabé Guimard remains to this day.  The predominate feature of the layout — that the north fountain and the two outer wide allées form the shape of an architect’s compass — reflects the influence of Free Masonry in 18th c. Brussels.

While formal, symmetrical, and on a grand scale, the park is simply planted with banks of shrubs, forest-style groupings of tall (naturally shaped) trees, and the rows of pleached lime trees, which border the whole garden and the north fountain.

Curvy, auxiliary paths wind between the main allées.

On the west side is a lovely 1841 bandstand designed by Jean-Pierre Cluysenaer.

The park also contains about 60 sculptures inspired by Roman-Greek myths.  Most were originally taken from the Brabant dukes’ castle, Tervuren, and the Thurn und Taxis Palace.  Today, however, many are copies.  The entire park underwent a restoration in 2001.

The urns and sculptures below circle the north fountain.

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Korte violetstraat, Brussels

Cindy at enclos*ure1 Comment


On a walk around the neighborhood just south of the Grand-Place (Grote Markt in Dutch) in Brussels, I came across the gate to ‘Little Violet Street.’

Halfway down the pedestrian way, an elephant gable stone marks the site of the 16th century “Old Elephant” tavern. (Click the photos to enlarge them.)

Gable stones are carved and often painted stone tablets set into exterior walls of buildings. Coming into use in the 16th century, they both identified (in the days before house numbers) and decorated homes and businesses. They can be found in many northern European cities, like Brussels, Amsterdam, Maastricht, Lille, and Copenhagen.

According to Wikipedia, “they normally combine a picture with an inscription, or sometimes just a date. Some illustrate the name or profession of the owner, for instance a quill pen as a badge for an author, or a ship for a sailor. Some are named after notable people (The King of Bohemia) or faraway trading destinations (Königsberg). Some stones act as talismans, quoting from holy scripture.”

Pollarded trees in Brussels

Cindy at enclos*ure8 Comments

An advantage of visiting Brussels in the final days of winter is being able to see the bare knobby limbs and whippy branches of the city’s many pollarded trees.  They “can look weird,” wrote Landscape Designer Clive West in The Guardian at this link.  But, like him, I am fascinated by the particular aesthetic of their gnarly forms — ancient and modern at the same time.

It was near dusk, and I took these photos with my husband’s Blackberry.
This was the Nouveau Marche aux Grains just off Rue Antoine Dansaert.
but it was within walking distance of the Grand Place.
I don’t remember the street of this little square,
I loved these bright yellow tables.
In a square at Avenue de Stalingrad and Jagersstraat.

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