Cité-jardin de la Roue (Garden City)

With the promise or reviving this blog, I wanted to use some free time we had to go look for one registered monument in our neighborhood - La Roue school. We did find it, but we will have to go back when it's open, because all the magic of it lies inside, so for now - no photos.

Fortunately, on the way we discovered really great area that caught our eyes. After further investigation, turns out this place is described in the Secret Brussels book I reviewed some time ago. It made me really proud, that I felt it's an interesting area before I read it! :)

The area is called simply La Roue (The Wheel), and you can access it via metro station called... La Roue. In one place I read that the name comes from the inn called La Roue that used to be around there. In other place I read the name comes from the breaking wheel. Did they have an inn here with breaking wheel inside? I don't know :)

What's special about it is the garden city.

When we walked around we were astonished to stumble upon Plain des Loisirs (Leisure square)  surrounded by little "hobbit houses". With kindergarden, playground (open for everyone interested) and lots of green in the middle, and lines of identical small houses, with little door, it look like a separate world from the very busy Chaussée de Mons we came from.

 

BTW, on the way from the metro station to this place, you pass on a square with big church in the middle. Just next to it, there's another small playground, usually busier. If you took your kids with you, I recommend planning a stop there.

Many houses were closed, doors bricked and with some numbers painted on them. We were scared they're going to demolish them, fortunately, they're just undergoing renovation. Someone definitely added some charm to the place by writing down random poems on almost every single brick wall we saw.

From what I read in the mentioned book and on the wiki, the houses were being build starting from 1920 (they actually started in 1907 but were interrupted by the war). It was supposed to be the working class dream come true - for current standards the houses seem rather tiny, but back then it was almost a luxury (so they say).

Nowadays 40% of area belongs still to the commune, which, as we understand, uses them for public housing.

The whole pleasant neighborhood spreads pretty wide, even though houses change their shapes further around.

Anything wrong with this sign? ;)

Going in the direction of the canal you can find vegetable gardens (the google street view looks way better, as there wasn't much growing there yet when we passed by).

We walked through the canal, passing the water lock, just to come across...

...La Senne!

It's not an usual view. If you ever wondered why Brussels seems like the only big city in Europe that doesn't have a river - it has La Senne. In 19th century though, it was totally covered, and flows under the city now. You can still see some stretches of it every now and then, especially on city borders.

The river looks lovely there, and there is new pathway with a little picnic space at the end of it. A bit industrial view on sides, but if you place yourself well on the bench, you can focus on the green trees.

Another pleasant walk checked. With weather changing from really sunny, to rainy, I'm happy to say we're fully using every stretch of sun that happens.

 

I don't know.... We just saw this on the way.

PS. That day we walked really a lot. Going to La Roue we passed by our parc des étangs, where I couldn't resist to take some pictures to update my post about it from last year. Later on we ended at beautiful Neerpede and visited local pizzeria.... but that is yet to come.

Ferme Nos Pilifs

Would you expect to find a full-sized operating farm in Brussels? And I mean not only the City of Brussels, but actually the Bruxelles-Ville commune. Surprise!

First of all, if you look at the map of Brussels districts, you will see that Bruxelles-Ville stretches up to north city borders, so we're not talking about the strict city center here. The area we're in used to be separate municipality called Neder-Over-Heembeek (lower-upper-heem-spring), and the name is still used to refer to it. Just next to big military hospital, we arrive at Nos Pilifs.

There's so many great things about that place, I find it hard to decide where should I start!

So first of all, it's a place you want to take your kids along with you. The access to the premises is absolutely free for everyone. There's a small playground available and then you can go for a long walk around the farm to see all the animals. And they have a lot of them!

Lots of different kinds of poultry, but also horses, goats, sheep, donkeys, and the biggest pigs I have seen in my life (just think of all the bacon!).

All animals are behind a fence (and some of them are behind an electric fence too). This is not a pet-zoo, children can't touch the animals, it is also strictly forbidden to feed them (except the pigs, no surprise).

When you're done with the tour, it's time to rest and maybe have a bite. Just in front of the playground (how convenient!) there's a small bistro with choice of beers, soft drinks and some food. The choice is not big, but I'm pretty sure the pancakes I had were fried on wood-kitchen - it gave them taste so amazing it didn't matter they were burnt a tiny bit - I ate them quicker than I could take a photo.

Now that you ate, you can do some shopping (never shop with an empty stomach!). In place you will find a small bio-shop which sells local produce and other bio-food. Wide selection of vegetables, fruits, cheese, and bread baked on wood.

On the other side you'll find a plant shop. The interior plants looked absolutely amazing.

The exterior ones were only slowly emerging after long winter, so they didn't yet look as impressive, but you can see the choice is great, and plants seem to be well taken care of.

That's a well spent day!

As a word of background, the farm is run by society that hires handicapped people. They have capacity of around 140 workers (as seen on their website). I find it a great initiative, that only adds to the splendor of the place.

And kept for the end, the thing I will absolutely have to try. Online store! In the country where 99% of commerce doesn't even exist in the internet (Chris read some statistics lately), here you can actually order all the best food with delivery to your nearest point of pickup (initially I thought they deliver straight home, but we didn't find a way to do that, still good enough).

I highly recommend that place. We'll be back! :)

Sgraffiti in Anderlecht

Rising like phoenix from the ashes, we're back after long, long winter. After approximately one week of spring, we seem to have jumped straight into summer today. People hungry for sunbeams rushed out on the streets. And so did we!

I've been wanting go see one place for some time now, and we finally did. But first things first.

Living in Anderlecht, we receive the official monthly Anderlecht newspaper: Anderlecht Contact. In the January edition I was very happy to see what's below.

Basically, for non FR/NL speakers, it's a competition. Every month they'll put a picture of some architectural detail, and people have to say what and where is it. As it's in the spirit of this blog, I promised myself to check them every month (though it seems they're getting harder!).

We didn't know the sgraffiti from the picture, but with enough googling around we managed to find the place (and by "we" I mean Chris found it, when he got sick of me nagging him). We threw the address in the Google Maps, and indeed it was the place. I'm putting a static screenshot from Google Street View just so you can see how the place looked originally (click on it to go to the map). It was horribly devastated, it's an amazing work that's been done on its restoration. It was almost impossible to see there was an artwork on these walls.

Google Map

And here it is now.

The paintings on the wall represent the four seasons and four parts of the day, all written in Dutch.

I asked people who organized the competition about any details of the building, architect, author of the paintings - but they replied that they couldn't find any information on it. It'll remain a mystery, at least until I find something...

As the weather was fantastic, we couldn't refuse ourselves a little walk around. We passed by the Plaine de Jeux Rauter that's on the corner, and which contains a playground with literally one slide in it. And nothing else... Well, I guest at least it's something.

It did seem like a very nice place anyway, and it was full of people playing around. On one side it's enclosed by a building with a mural that caught my attention.

 

Paintings contain view on Brussels (or rather it's the vision how Brussels should be), including some landmarks like Palais de Justice (first picture), Basilique, building of European Parliament, but also some typical Brussels street corners.

Altogether, a very nice little walk we had. More will surely follow - it's about time to revive this place!

Secret Brussels

Welcome in 2013, we have survived the end of the world!

(dry reference to the anticipated apocalypse: check)

Hope you all had a pleasant holiday break, and are welcoming this new year with eagerness, positive energy and good vibes! 

Good for you. We are all sick, and picture behind the window is as grey as it can get. Personally, I can't wait for a beam of sunshine coming down to warm up our city a bit, so we can enjoy being out again, and my list of places to visit and photograph got extremely long.

One of the reason of it, is definitely my also growing collection of books about Brussels. Since I was pleased to receive (and buy myself) another two, I think it's time for a small review. And with that, I'll start with the very first book I got from a friend for my birthday last year. And it's called "Secret Brussels". Just perfect, isn't it? :)

For the practical details, as it was a present I should not check the prices for the book myself, but I am sure you can figure it out with simple search online, same goes for as to where to buy this book. Several places as a form of recommendation from me, include Sterling Books and Filigranes, I also saw few similar books in the wonderful store by the Brussels Museum of Fine Arts (though this particular one was not there).

The book has a short, to-the-point subtitle "Local Guides by Local People", and is indeed written by inhabitants of the city. It comes in a handy pocket guide form, easy to carry around with you.

Chapters are made of different districts of the city, and in my edition that includes West of Boulevards, East of Boulevards, Ixelles, Etterbeek and the European District, Saint-Gilles and Forest, Anderlecht (yay), Molenbeek, Koekelberg and Laeken, Uccle, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Watermael-Boisfort and Auderghem. Each chapter begins with the list of all items in that district and their localisation shown on the plan. 

You won't find many of the most famous places of Brussels, and even the few that are there, are shown from different than usual perspective (the alchemistry of the Grand Place, masonic Brussels Park). You will find tons of unusual monuments, unknown museums and hidden architectural gems. 

Each curiosity has one page of description, with a full page picture on the side, practical information (like localisation, or opening hours where applicable), and sometimes - sights to see nearby with their little description too.

I don't think I can say anything more, without actually going into details of the content, which I don't want to do. This book deserves to be bought by anyone interested. It is not a guide for someone who's first time in Brussels (unless you're a total hipster going always against the wave, but I'd feel sorry if you missed to see Atomium). 

What it is, is a perfect guide for someone who already knows Brussels, seen the main things. Maybe you're coming to the city yet another time, you've seen all the "important" stuff and you look for a fresh idea. Maybe you've been living here for a while and need inspiration for another walk in the city. Maybe you've been here your whole life, but you never noticed this weird museum by the corner, or beautiful sgraffiti on the house in your street. (Yes, after reading all the books, and getting into the topic, I know words like sgraffiti, art-nouveau and "new insights are crafted from both mundane and transcendant textures". Ah no, last one is from http://www.artybollocks.com :)).

What can I say in the end? Open your wallet, get the book, hit the streets of Brussels and make yourself feel like Indiana Jones - you're exploring!