Picnic in the park - Parc du Château de Beloeil

Summer is fading away already... Even on a beautiful, sunny day as today I wouldn't leave the house without a coat. Winter is coming... Still it wasn't long ago that we were enjoying picnic time, running around barefoot and in t-shirts! Oh, good times.

The initiative is called Picnic in the Park. Or rather a pique-pique, in Wallonia. Or Garden Meetings...
You see, I am a little bit confused myself. I have found references to this event on several pages, including the Tourism Office of Brussels and Wallonia, each presenting just a tiny little bit different information. They should really work on that...

The idea is simple though. The region of Wallonia is promoting itself with their best - the food, with a catchy slogan "Taste the Difference". As a part of this program you can attend loads of different places and events - markets, festivals, demonstrations... Thanks to the link posted on LinkedIn The Brussels Connection group by the owner of Belgafiles website I have learnt about the picnics.

I have learnt late, as it was already beginning of September and the official website lists only the picnics up to 2nd September... The Belgafiles website though contains information about the 5 picnics during the month of September (you see, I wasn't overstating that there's an informational mess out there....).
Despite the difficulties finding information, on 16th September we packed our plaids and set our course for Parc de Beloeil.



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It is a good hour drive from Brussels, but especially in the nice weather, Belgian countryside is a pleasure to drive through. Even if you don't enjoy the road, you won't regret it, because picnic or not - this place is STUNNING!

See the map of the garden at the website: http://jardins.tourismewallonie.be/visiter/parc_du_chateau_de_beloeil

There you can also see information about other parks participating, and if you set your website in French or Dutch, you can download mp3 files with the guide around each park.

I would also expect the calendar of picnics, but they seem to contain only historical data. Mess again... Oh, but who cares, with views like that!

You can see the full history of the castle and the park on its official website: http://www.chateaudebeloeil.com. 

As for the picnic, at the place there's a small site prepared, where you can pick up picnic bags, buy a beer or an ice-cream. Adult picnic bag came for 10€ and contained couple of sandwiches with local products, bottle of water, pack of cheese and an apple. There were children bags too, for 5€, but we didn't see what's inside them. We also had our own food prepared, which is a good idea if you plan a longer stay. And by we, I mean Jon prepared it. We ate it. 

For everyone, whether you bought your basket or not, there was a free guided tour around the park available (in French). Not that many people were crazy enough to actually move out of their blankets, so we had our lady-guide just to ourselves. It was a visit worth the time, talking about history of the place, the types of gardens, and the purpose of little lakes (one to have carps for the supper, one for the ladies bath time, one to serve as a giant fridge...)

To profit fully from the trip we also decided to visit the castle itself. That pleasure costs 4€ (without a guide). It's not a very big castle, but it is beautiful and interesting. You will find plenty of paintings and sculptures, whole rooms arranged as they were in the past and a breathtaking (if you like books, that is) library.

We finished our day with couple of rounds of cold beer in the local cafe. Everyone enjoys the good Belgian beer (on the picture my favourite for hot days - Hoegaarden Blanche).

(I was actually asked - no, she haven't really drink the beer!)

I am definitely planning to profit more from this event next year - as it goes on from the spring and through the whole summer.

Keep your fingers crossed for good weather this Sunday, because there's a last picnic of the year - in Mariemont, and we are planning to go!

Église Sainte-Agathe and Bois du Wilder

When going through the monuments lists and marking them on the map I decided to test Chris a little bit. We went through couple of the files and he was trying to guess what is the picture showing, and where it can be found. He was doing really well, I must admit!

On one of the monuments he said "oh, that's a lovely place and it's next to my parents, I can't believe I never showed you that one". That's how first target of our expeditions was set. Next time we dropped the baby at her grandparents, we had a bit of time, the weather was nice - we hit the road.

You can find two Saint-Agatha's churches in Brussels, and if you search in Google Maps you will find the wrong one. Google will show you the new church, one that I believe is still in use, at Rue de l'Église (being very originally, the Church Street).

The one listed as a monument, the old one, can be found at Rue de l'Allée Verte - the Street of the Green Path. The street itself is interesting and we will come back to visit it (and blog about it) as it is, as a whole, protected and listed as a monument. This time though, we focused on the church. And the wood.

First things first. Below you can see the exact location of the church on Google Maps with a Street View. Pretty pretty, no?

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According to Wikipedia (Berchem-Sainte-Agathe) the church was build somewhere between 1287 and 1311, and is one of the two only buildings in the whole commune built before 1800. From Wikipedia I also learnt that the Church went through a restoration twice, in 1744 and in 1974. That's where it ends. I could not find any other information about its origin and history.

What I found though, is old pictures of the place. For French speaking people interested in the history (yes, Nolan, I am thinking of you now), this is interesting link to follow: Bruxelles Anecdotique - Berchem-Ste-Agathe.

Nowadays the church is closed. We didn't see any information about possible visits or events happening there, so we only took some photographs from the outside. I must say I like the new look of it. It looks cleaner and, paradoxically, older than before.

On the picture below, being view on the Rue de l'Allée Verte, you can see part of the building that is shown as a whole in the last picture from the past. This is the ancient Brasserie (brewery) which we will definitely go back to (and it is also listed as a protected monument). At the time of our visit though, it was still undergoing massive renovation so it wasn't looking that impressive.

If you're standing in the front of the church (as in the second to last picture) and you will turn around, you will see one of the entrances to the Bois du Wilder.

You can find a general description of the place (in English) at this website: Sustainable City - Wilder Wood.

The detailed description, unfortunately only in French: IF_EV_Parcs_Bois_du_Wilder_FR.

According to the document linked above, the first mentions of the site come from the Middle Ages. It was probably part of the "I'Hof ter Wilst", ancient farm dating from XIII century. Sources say about the castle which was there around XVI century. 

After the French Revolution (1789 to 1799) the castle was destroyed and the whole site fell into the ownership of the Koninckx' - hence the other name for the wood - Koninckxbos. The name Koninckx rings a bell in my head. I think I saw it somewhere browsing through the Brussels monuments, but I cannot find it back right now. I will do more research some other time...

At that time the place was gradually turning into park of English style, only to be cut down (again) during the World War II for a fireplace wood. It was then divided into parcels for the purpose of urbanisation, but one of the parts remained abandoned and eventually turned into the wood that we can visit today.

As for me, it is really great place to have a walk at. Looks like a miniature of a forest (which I guess is a definition of a wood, really). It seems really wild in some places, but is cut with several paths containing lots of benches to rest and relax. And trash cans! Trivial maybe, but I pay attention to that - nothing more annoying than having to carry your trash for an hour with you (and seeing that some people didn't care to carry them at all).

On the other side you will find yourself next to a cemetery, but we didn't feel like visiting that one yet (however strangely that might sound).

On the Wiki pages, along the lines where the author complains about the commune being changed due to the pressure of developers, I found information that this site belongs to the commune itself, therefore is not at risk of being changed into a apartment block or a supermarket. Good news, for sure.



The Foods and drinks in Bxl

That would be the last general yadda yadda before the "real deal" posts, scouts word. But it is definitely something I wanted to share as a part of this blogging experience.

You know how you might know lots of great places in the city, but when you actually wonder where to eat next lunch you can't remember even one? Well, I know. That's why I started saving all my favourite restaurants and pubs, and to make it nicer - I am saving them on a map. This way any time I don't have a clue where to go, I can check my map for the inspiration.

Now, important point - this is my personal choice. It is not even "the best of Brussels" and it is not exhaustive. Some of the places are not the best deal in the city, but I like them for some reasons (mostly because they serve pierogis!). Still, I thought it might be worth sharing it.

All these places (and more) I plan to visit again in short future, this time with a camera, and write a little review for this blog.


View My fav foods and drinks in Brussels in a larger map

Past midnight is an extremely late hour for a parent of a 5-month-old, so for today that's all folks.

"Wiki loves monuments"

Now then, about the project that inspired me.

Wiki is asking people from all over the world (34 participant countries as of today) to take a picture of a monument and share it with the community. The competition lasts during the month of September. Check it out at this address:

http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/

Now, to actually get people going, each country published the list of registered monuments. This made me think..."Hey! Why not just try to hunt them all down?!". Why? Well, because I am not the type to walk around the city without an aim, but I do like walking. I just needed to find the purpose.

List of all protected monuments for Brussels is published in form of PDF files per commune in here:

http://www.monument.irisnet.be/fr/patrimoine/intro.htm

To make my life easier I started putting the addresses into Google Maps, and here it is!
Mind, that some addresses are not precise, so you might need to go up and down the street to find what you're looking for, but hey, it's better than nothing.



Map Channels
Full Screen Map

I found this great site, http://www.mapchannels.com, which lets you edit your maps, add filters and other cool stuff. Definitely helps when you're trying to manage more than 500 placemarks (and it's not all yet!).

Cute little icons for each commune (which are, in fact, their coat of arms) are thanks to great help of my friend Jono - thaaaank you :)

If you want to follow the experience, what I recommend - take the PDFs with you! Print them out, or upload them on your mobile. Use the map to see what's around you, but don't trust it 100%. And sometimes you will need a picture of the monument to actually find it amongst many other ugly houses (yeah, some protected monuments seem to be just ugly houses, but I guess I just don't understand art).

Enjoy! And maybe see you in the field? :)

The "Hello world" post

It is an extreme struggle for me to write some welcoming introduction, so let's just go straight to the point, shall we?

Born and raised in Poland, I have come to live in the city of Brussels in 2009 and I absolutely fell in love with the place and its spirit.

In 2011 planets collided and I met the man.
Chris is a real Brusseler. He was born and raised here, he speaks French, Flemish and Brusseleer, he knows the public transport by heart,  he can tell you where to have a great meal and where to party, who's the golden statue at the Grand Place of, and how was pl. Flagey before it was trendy. He lived in 11 different places in 5 different communes (and worked or partied in all the others). And damn he's proud of it :)

Since we met he's been showing me sides of Brussels I have not seen before. And just when we thought we used up all our luck, our daughter was born!

Despite slowing down drastically on the nightlife, I really wanted to continue experiencing the city. One on-line project (I'll get to it) finally inspired me to set up a blog and share our findings.

So here it is!

We will be posting about our little trips around the city (and outside of it), our favorite restaurants and places to see. Some of them you'll probably find in any city guide, some of them I hope will be more obscure, or just known to locals.

If anyone except our family and friends happens to visit us - I really hope you'll find something interesting and new for yourself in here.

Let the blogging begin!