[Beth]: This will be a short post, as we split Thursday into two parts. In the morning, Jared went to the last few sessions of his conference, while I did more sight-seeing. About 1pm, we caught a train for Bruges. That will be another post.
Thursday morning I went to the City Museum, which is a small but fun museum right on the Grand Place. The top floor has a chronological history of the city, with a fascinating photography section displaying pictures from 100 or so years ago next to pictures taken in the same places in 2008. It was a creative way to show how much the city has (or in some cases has not) changed over time.
The museum also has all of the costumes of the Mannekin Pis. Over the years, nearly all countries have sent costumes to be displayed on the statue for a time. The variety of costumes from around the world was amazing – a few of my favorites are below.
Along with the costume displays, the museum also had a video of people’s reactions to the statute. It plays on a loop, and was pretty hilarious to watch. I think the little kids were the funniest. They would say things like “He’s going to get in trouble with his mom,” or “He just keeps on going!” I definitely watched the video for a good 25 minutes.
After the museum and before meeting Jared to catch our train, I went on a bit of a choco-crawl, as Rick Steves calls it. On the Grand Place are four of the most famous chocolatiers in Belgium: Godiva, Neuhaus, Galler, and Leonidas. Godiva is pretty famous world-wide, but the others are less well-known. Galler is family-run, doesn’t export, and is the royal favorite. Leonidas is not handmade but you get the most chocolates for your euro. Even though I had sampled many of the varities during the week, it’s not too surprising that none of the truffles I bought made it back to Jared. So I stopped at all four shops and bought about 4 to 6 truffles from each. It was going to be a good train ride to Bruges!
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