Thursday, April 12, 2012

Brussels Festival at the weekend

Just returned from a weekend in Brussels 18-21 Sept 09. There was a festival going on at the main square but don%26#39;t know what it was for, although it was great fun. Can anyone tell me what it was about.




|||



There were several things going on at the same time. For a start it was %26quot;open monument%26quot; (heritage) weekend in the Brussels region, then on Sunday it was the annual no-car day when they organise different events in the streets, including a foretaste of the Vancouver winter olympics (with an artificial snow %26quot;mountain%26quot;, free concerts, etc. in the Cinquantenaire park); dance lessons in the streets around rue du Marché aux Grains, not far from the Grand%26#39; Place; demonstrations by a circus school in Place St. Catherine; and another annual event that is always timed to coincide with this one, called %26quot;Bruxelles champêtre%26quot;, or %26quot;the countryside comes to Brussels%26quot; in the area in front of the royal palace.



In addition to that, and I suspect this is what you will have seen, it was the 49th annual %26quot;Fêtes Traditionnelles de la Commune Libre de l%26#39;Ilot Sacré%26quot; - festival of the Ilôt Sacré area, which is the area between rue du Marché aux Herbes and the Galeries St. Hubert, very close to the Grand%26#39; Place, plus this year they were celebrating the 25th anniversary of being twinned with a similar area in Belgrade AND it was the annual %26quot;braderie%26quot; (local fête with street market) of the rue du Marché aux Herbes - almost every street in Brussels has one - AND there was a second-hand book fair in the Place de la Monnaie...




|||



there were also two things at cinqentenaire a celebration of 20 years of the Brussels commune with bobsliegh and dry ski slopes etc and a pineau de charentes fest at merode with oysters chesse and plenty of samples.

No comments:

Post a Comment