moof - Museum Of Original Figurines

Brussels, having lots of advantages, is unfortunately not the most sunny place in the world. Fortunately, it offers a lot to its inhabitants, even on the rainy days.

On one of those days we were googling around and came across moof. After a quick look we have made a decision and half an hour later four of us was sitting in the car. Yes, I wish to say "5 minutes later" but only a parent will understand why half an hour of packing for a small ride is a blast with two small kids. Anyway.

The address provided on visitbrussels.be was "Rue Marche aux Herbes" and we have strolled through the whole street only to arrive at Galerie Horta. And the museum happens to be just there! You are, of course, welcomed by the big Schtroumpf statue just in the front.

I was not sure if visiting museum of figurines is going to be fun or completely boring. What can you really do with figurines right?

Wrong. It was absolutely great. There is lots of items, from both worldwide known characters and obscure Brussels comics. The place itself is really well decorated creating cool, a bit mysterious ambiance.

There is a lovely gift shop, of course, a whole area filled with comic books you can read at comfortable sofas, and arcade games zone.

I am definitely saving this address for the upcoming cold days.

PS. Upcoming cold days remind me - don't miss the Nocturnes! This year they start at 5pm so we can even drag the kids with us!

Far East museums - Chinese Pavilion - Japanese Tower

Quite a while since my last post and you know what? I don't even feel guilty! Our family got +1 again and even when we do get out of our place - which happens not as often, but we do our best - photo camera is not even making it to top 10 things to pack with us. Visiting any place with a baby and a toddler is also something close of extreme sport.

I do have some "stories" waiting in my virtual drawer though, and I guess it's time to dig them up. I am not even thinking of writing regularly - not until spring at least - but doesn't mean I can't drop a topic every now and then to feed the crowd hungry of my words ;)

As cold days settled for good and we can enjoy the typical Belgium weather a lot these days, I prefer to skip the outdoor places that look gorgeous in the sun - why would I want to torture myself? We go indoors then. We go to Far East museums.

Now, despite my platonic love with Japanese culture, adding to it very real love for Asian cuisine, I don't think I would stumble upon this museum if not the "very hard to miss" landmark - Japanese tower emerging from within the trees. If you ever drove around Laeken, possibly going for a movie to Kinepolis, or looking for Atomium - you probably past by the tower. If you drove just next to it, you must have seen the Chinese pavilion just across the street as well. I did, I even stopped by to take some pictures outside and I was completely set on visiting both one day.

One day has come and we packed up our little one (our little two was still firmly attached to my body making travel easy) and set of to see our friend and have a good time.

It didn't take much investigation to find the story of the place, so I will just send you to the official website for details and myself I'll focus on the impressions.

Museum consists of three buildings - the pavilion, the tower, and small building behind the pavilion that was originally meant to be a garage. We started with the latter, being now Museum of Japanese art.

Big part of Japanese art seems to be martial arts, as the collection consists mostly of old weaponry and armours. Besides that, you will also find beautiful kimonos, screens and other pieces. Quite a treat if you're into those things.

Chinese pavilion is an exhibit on its own. Even though it contains collection of Chinese porcelain, what's most fascinating is the building itself. Ground floor is covered in gold, with stunning ornaments and wall paintings.

Beautiful stairs lead to upper floor with bunch of amazing rooms in different styles, and some kind of a play room with games available for kids.

On that matter - the museum might not be super-kids-friendly - but it's definitely kids safe. We didn't have to shout out "don't touch it" too much, and there's even mentioned play room and outdoor playground for the little ones, so don't fear taking them along. Our toddler loved the trip.

Taking the underground passage you cross the street to see the little zen garden and the tower placed in it. The garden looks beautiful, but is not accessible except for the peek view from the outside.

Unfortunately you can't climb the tower - huge disappointment. The inside though is absolutely wonderful and worthy seeing if only for the amazing glass works all over. For that one I recommend visiting on a day with at least a bit of sunshine.

 
Altogether it's fairly small museum, even counting all the buildings together. Most people visit it only from the outside - which is free. We even saw couple of buses of tourists that came in like a hurricane to take some photos and as quickly disappeared to hit the next "must-see" object on their express tour around Brussels.

I do recommend taking a bit more "Zen" approach to the visit - take your time, enjoy the visit, cherish the artworks. If you're looking for filling in some time - try to find the Tai-Chi group that exercises at the premises. We saw some people just as we were visiting and frankly, what could possibly be a better place for that in Brussels?

Coudenberg - Underground city

I didn't lie when I said we keep on visiting places. This one is still from May - time flies so fast these days!

We were inspired to this visit by our "big project" I mentioned earlier. The work is still in progress, so I am not going to reveal its connection to this post... I am just going to tease you a bit by mentioning it every now and then. Trying to create a bit of suspense! :)

This time, as the title states, we go underground. If you know Brussels a bit, you've probably seen Place Royale - the one with great view on down-town, with the monument of a guy on a horse, just next to the Brussels Park. You got it?

Well then, this square was not always there. The ground was not always there either!

Square was build on top of a former Palace of Brussels, which burnt down in 1731. Yes, you got it right - they just covered up the remains with new buildings. But thanks to some renovation works and curious archaeologists, the site is being restored and is available for visits.

The palace was placed on a hill - Coudenberg (which in Dutch actually means "cold hill"), therefore the name. It's also often referred to as Palace of Charles V (curious why?).

Usually when you enter, you visit the museum and the archaeological site. Unfortunately, the museum was closed at the time, so we will have to go back one day to see it. The site itself though is interesting enough.

It consists of remainings of the palace itself, but also the whole street, rue Isabelle, with a Hoogstraeten House that stood by it.

 

Even recently, when we found ourselves again on Place Royale, I felt a bit of magic, seeing all the people walking around and most of them not being aware of what's hidden just under their feet.

 

I must admit, it was a bit tricky to handle a toddler, camera, read the guide and try to see what's around, so in the end - many photos are blurry, and I didn't exactly catch all the info... but what the heck, it was still nice, and little one enjoyed it as well.

Unfortunately I have lost the brochures we received, which give general info on the history, but also describe each building and show it's placement against the Place Royale on top. I would definitely want to go back there and have closer look this time, maybe even go for the audio guide that's available.

 

On the pragmatic side - the reception staff was super-nice and helpful. Then again, in Brussels most people are super-nice and helpful (I stand by it!). We had to leave the pushchair by their desk, though after we had our walk, I must say only few places were really unavailable to pushchair. It's supposed to be wheelchair accessible, so then - what's the difference, really?

Anyway, another nice place to visit, that's for sure. If you have more time (we didn't) you can get a combo-ticket to visit BELvue museum as well, which is apparently museum of Belgian history and culture (definitely on my list). You can even include lunch in the museum cafe that offers really good looking snacks (whether they're good-tasting we still need to check).

For more info, look at their site (check out "for kids" section - you can organize a treasure hunting event! forget the kids, I want to do it!).

Nocturnes - Belgian museum of freemasonry

Short days, and cold evenings are definitely not a big source of inspiration for me. I haven't been writing for a while, even though I still have few topics waiting in the queue since the better days - guilty as charged. Let's try to break that stagnation a bit.

If as me, you're not a big fan of outdoor activities when temperature leans towards 0, but you still want to do _something_, and unlike me you have free Thursday evenings - why not go to the museum?

Now, museums in Brussels have pretty mean opening hours. You'd have to skip work or get up early on Saturday (but Saturday is already occupied with shopping, which you can't do on any other day either!). Fortunately, there are ways.

Brussels Nocturnes are organized every year by Brussels Museum Council. Every Thursday couple of Brussels museums are open until late evening, often providing special guides or other events. This year edition is almost finished already, so if you haven't notice that in my calendar, you missed it! Check out details at their website:

http://www.brusselsmuseumsnocturnes.be/

We managed to visit one (yes, only one) museum. I really wanted to see more, but as much as some of the evenings are very kids-friendly, none of them are really baby-friendly, which is usually a show-stopper for us (but not for long!). The one visited was the Belgian museum of freemasonry.

http://mbfm.be

I was interested in freemasonry for some time now, especially when I started investigating Brussels for this little blog here and I saw what impact the fraternity had on the city.When I saw that the museum has open days it was already decided.

Museum is placed on rather quiet street and doesn't really catch your attention if you're not looking for it, with fits the discretion that Freemasons are known by. At the same time though, it welcomes the visitors with big transparency statement on the wall.

There are several groups of freemasonry all over the world, not all of them recognize each other as "true" ones. The museum is run by all the Belgian lodges (at least all the big ones), which I find to be a nice touch, since they generally don't go together well.

Entrance is pretty neat. You have to wait to the door to be open in a small room, surrounded by freemasonry symbols. Behind the door you enter the corridor with sky-like ceiling, traditional to freemasonry. Very impressive!

The excitement wears off pretty quick though. Museum, even though small, contains quite some amount of items, but is definitely missing more organization and explanation. I found it was lacking some general introduction where the freemasonry came from, what it means, what is it today. It felt a bit like all the items were just thrown inside to be watched, but there was no, or little story behind them. That's unless you have a guide.

During the Nocturnes there were several guides in place, as far as I understand Freemasons themselves. They were all very nice and helpful (and one was pretty drunk, too! :)) We rather quickly acquainted one of them and spend most of the time not only asking questions in context of the museum, but also having general discussions of life, universe and the rest. He was the one to point few items in the museum and say some story about them.

Unfortunately, for the sake of the exhibits taking photos is forbidden, only general "ambience" pictures are allowed, with no flash. Fortunately, my camera deals pretty well with darkness so I could photograph a wall with names of famous masons. According to the story of our guide, the stain on the wall, which they tried to get rid of by any means, turned out to be horse piss! The room used to be stables in the past.

I was expecting the museum to be rather empty, but it turned out to be really busy! The legend of Freemasonry attracted many people, so it got crowded and loud, for such a small place. Not the way I want to contemplate such a topic. I am therefore hoping to come back there, in some better circumstances and get to know more about it.

Generally, if you're interested by the topic, it's a great museum as long as you get a guide. Without a guide, you'll probably be bored after 15 minutes, but with a proper one - you could spend hours there going through all the exhibits.

Remember the Brussels Nocturnes for the next year. It's a nice way to pass the time, maybe see friends, and afterwards go to a nice resto nearby to warm up (we chose the La fin de siècle, which Chris described in his last post). And there's so many museums to choose from, everyone will find something interesting.