Tag: Brussels

The Sunday porch: paint and vines

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Ste-Catherine, Brussels, Sept. 2015, enclos*ure

These are not really porches, of course, but two café doorways and a storefront.

They caught my eye while we were walking around the Sainte-Catherine or Sint Katelijne neighborhood of Brussels, which is just northwest of the Grand’Place and La Bourse.

Rue de Flandre, Brussels, Sept. 2015, enclos*ure

The one pictured above is on Rue de Flandre.

Rue de Flandre, Brussels, Sept. 2015, enclos*ure

I believe I snapped this blue café, above, on Quai au Bois à Brûler, facing the site of the old Saint-Catherine Bassin or canal port, covered over since the 1870s.

Ste-Catherine, Brussels, Sept. 2015, enclos*ure

I like the way the ivy is used as both a decorative windowbox planting and low privacy screen.

A vine-covered storefront, also along Rue de Flandre.
Above, a mass of vines shades a closed storefront, also along Rue de Flandre.

Detail.
Detail of photo above.

Rue de Flandre is a good street on which to find an interesting restaurant.  We liked Viva M’Boma (old-fashioned Belgian food, emphasis on meat/offal) and Domaine de Lintillac (dishes from the southwest of France, emphasis on duck).

Click on any photo above to enlarge it.

Grassline, Brussels

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This week, I’m just sharing a lot of little garden walk-by sightings from our trip to Paris and Brussels earlier this month. . .

I liked the simple elegance of this roofline planting on an apartment building in the Châtelain neighborhood in Brussels. It appeared to be all one variety of fountain grass. I couldn’t tell if the plants were growing in a container along the edge or if they were at the front of a larger terrace garden.

Here’s one little dream. . .

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To have a pied-à-terre in Brussels and to have it be on Rue de la Cigogne.

Street of the Stork.
The 1780 “porch” at the Rue Rempart des Moines entrance.
I think I see the house. (And check out the beautiful streetlamp.)
The pink one on the left.
Yes, that’s the one.
Looking back. Sigh. . .
Or maybe this house with the little door?
Or the one with the stone lintel from 1596?
Leaving by the entrance on Rue de Flandre.

Rue de la Cigogne is a ruelle or alleyway about 70 m. (230′) long between Rue Rempart des Moines and Rue de Flandre in the neighborhood of Dansaert.

Click any thumbnail in the gallery above to scroll through larger images.

All day all over the city every person
Wanders a different city, sealed intact
And haunted as the abandoned subway stations
Under the city. Where is my alley doorway?

— Robert Pinsky, from “City Elegies — I. The Day Dreamers“