1936 On the Continent

very fine. At the Palais des Sports bicycle races are run almost every Sunday.”
    “Do you play football here too?”
    “Football is one of our most popular sports. Every Sunday important matches are played on the ground near Brussels. The largest football ground of all—at the Heysel—can seat 60,000 people.”
    “And is that all, Pierre?”
    “By no means. There’s rowing on the lake of the Bois de la Cambre. When you go to the Bois, as we call it, you’ll see that dotted about among the trees there are a great number of tea-houses where one dances in the open from midday till after midnight. You must not miss that. It is a charming sight! The smartest of these places is the Laiterie; rather more middle-class is the Rossignols; quite popular and unrestrained, the rendezvous of young lovers, is Moeder Lambic and the establishments surrounding it. There you will be able to eat thick slices of bread and butter covered with cream cheese, which is a special Brussels treat. If you want more local colour, order a glass of ‘gueuze lambic’ with it.”
    “If you’re at a loose end one evening, I advise you to go to the Jai-Alai. This is a vast hall (which holds 2,000 people) where the Basque game of ‘balle pelote’ is played. There are professional teams of South Americanand Spanish players, who are thrilling to watch. Much betting goes on about the matches just as in horse-racing.”
Art
    “And after this frivolous interlude, tell me about art in Brussels.”
    “You are, after all, the complete tourist. Admirable, my dear! Painting heads the list: you’ll visit the Museum of Ancient Art; naturally. It is filled to the brim with marvels. I won’t bore you with a detailed description of it. But masterpieces by our greatest painters are sheltered there—pictures by Rubens, Jordaens, Breughel, Van Dyck, Teniers, Memlinc, and others. You’ll notice that a great effort has been made to liven up several of the rooms by arranging these ancient treasures in more modern fashion—avoiding overcrowding, or hanging out of reach—with the happiest results. A thorough cleaning of certain masterpieces has done away with an impenetrable film of old varnish which covered many a delicate shade in an old picture, and has revealed glowing tints that had been buried for centuries.
    “You must not get the old Museum mixed up with the modern Museum only a few yards distant from it.
    “The modern Museum is well worth a visit, since it will give you a rapid view of Belgian artistic production for the last fifty years.
    “If the antique inspires you, there is still the Museum of the Cinquantenaire, where Egyptian, Greek and Roman treasures are displayed. This contains marvellous tapestries too, and lace and china, and a host of delightful and varied objects that have settled down there in the name of art and history. The Army Museum is quite near to it.
    “If our Colonial art interests you, you will visit the Tervueren Museum and its wonderful park situated a few miles out of Brussels. Electric trains will take you there in a few minutes. If you’re really passionately fond of African things, there is a tiny shop, Walschot, 71 rue de la Montagne, where you will find the finest collection of African objects in Belgium.
    “Another old museum, small, curious and romantic, that attracts many foreign visitors is the Wiertz Museum.Here are assembled the various works of the painter Wiertz—a sort of visionary. There are others yet, but if you should have time to explore them, you’ll find any amount of information about them later on.
    “Besides these museums, which keep the past alive for us, you should see the Palais des Beaux Arts. This building is quite recent and is situated in the centre of the town. It contains enormous galleries for exhibitions of painting and sculpture, several concert halls, one of which is remarkable and contains accommodation for 2,000 persons. Belgians are very fond of music (even to neglecting other arts in its favour), and very fine concerts conducted by the greatest of musicians are given almost every day. It is in this same building that you will find the cinema which I mentioned before.”
    “And what about the country around Brussels?”
    “We’re coming to that. But I seem to have forgotten a number of things about Brussels itself. Let me get that over first, my dear. You simply must pass through the popular streets of the town—the rue Haute, the rue Blaes, or the rue de Flandre.