BRUSSELS - Baloon parade

On Saturday was the annual Brussels Baloon Parade and of course I had to see that. The participants gathered at the Gare du Midi (the South Station of Brussels) a little Smurf is already expecting us. Not very far from the station is the publisher of the smurfs and its creator worked there. Another cartoon figure Brussels "Gendarme" (a policeman) watches over the people Music and fun a military orchestra and the Parade goes along the Boulevard Brussels symbols, the Atomium and Manneken Pis (little man piss) The police has nothing to do and chats People were sitting on the steps of "La Bourse" which is the stock market of Brussels. Manneken Piss arrives and for the first time this year people could sit on the terraces of the cafés. Of the baloons I made this little slide show.

AN AFRICAN MUSEUM IN BRUSSELS

From time to time I like to visit a museum in Brussels. There are a lot and as the weather was beautiful, I choose a museum in Tervueren which is located in the suburbs of Brussels and has a very beautiful big parc. It's a nice place to walk around and afterwards visit the museum and have a little drink inside.
King Léopold II of Belgium made the Congo (Africa) to a belgian colony in 1885 and decided that he had to show the potential of the country in an exhibition. When in 1897 the World Fair was held in Brussels, a colonial section was built in Tervuren: the Palace of the Colonies. Would also have been a great place to store possessions !

It was built by the Belgian architect Georges Hobé in Art Nouveau style, using Bilinga wood, an African tree. It displayed ethnographic objects and stuffed animals. In 1898 the Palace of the Colonies became the Musée du Congo, and now the exhibits became permanent. Today it is called the Royal Museum for Central Africa. At present, it is struggling with modernisation. Some call it "a museum of a museum", as it shows how a museum looked like in the 1960s.


Today I only show you the in and outside of the museum. But in there you can see all wild African animals which had been killed and stuffed out.




View from the parc





Front view





You are greeted by this funny orchestra when you arrive near the museum.




A small part of the parc which is quite big





In front of the entrance are these wooden elephants in natural size




A very nice work. They are all out of small wooden pieces.



Inside it looks like a palace. When I was 15 I used to go there with my classmates and we played in this boat, made of one trunk.



and also around this stuffed elephant, which stood free in 1959. There was no entrance fee either.

Left and right the vitrines with figures, sculptures and tools












The little café invites you for a drink





There are also beautiful bronze sculptures all around the entrance hall



pictures of the locals





and the stuffed animals behind glass. They must be very very old because they are still the same as I have seen them 50 years ago ! It was an event for people to see these animals because at that time you couldn't travel as a tourist all over the world and see them life !