Richard Savage

Most of what I do has some sort of arty element and a recent trip to Brussels has been no exception.  I usually discount the day you take to get there and the day it takes you to get home; they feel like blank days to me, as I am usually too tired to do much other than think about food and drink.  But with Brussels, like Paris, a little time to do nothing but think about food and drink is really not a chore.

We started a day’s sightseeing with an Art Nouveau walk.  It was lovely to see so many buildings with original features dating back to the late 1800’s.  Our walk culminated in a visit to the former home of the architect Victor Horta, a truly wonderful building especially considering how long it has been there.  The queue to get in took about an hour but it was well worth the wait.

Another highlight of the trip was The Atomium which is a monument in Brussels originally built for Expo ’58, the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Designed by André Waterkeyn and Les Architectes Polak, it stands 102 metres (335 ft) tall. It has nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times.  It was a truly impressive sight though I had confused the meaning of the structure with a comment about the European Parliament!

We visited the Rene Magritte exhibition at the Musee Magritte.  I have a fondness for surreal art and I thought the exhibition was very inspiring, odd, but inspiring.

The Son of Man by Rene Magritte

I couldn’t begin to explain any of his work but there is a huge level of technical skill in the painting.  If you are interested you can click here to see more of his work.

We were wandering down a back street where we cane across the Krethlow Gallery seeing the work of the Swiss artist Wolfgang Zät, truly amazing work, massive hand cut lino prints.  I could have lost myself for hours in the intricacy of his art work.

It was a great break away, can’t wait to go back to Brussels!