Brussels, Belgium – It may have taken me two visits, but I finally discovered Brussels’ nightlife. But who knew it would be in an 18th century church?
Brusselians go out late, so I didn’t have the pleasure of even beginning to line up outside the venue until 12.30am on the Saturday night (well, Sunday morning). An hour later we were in, walking into an enormous nave that was lit up like Christmas from dozens of laser lights and the sound of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ booming from the PA. We joined a couple of thousand Belgian hipsters and a handful of ex-pat Foreign Office types in the space, which was apparently weeks away from being turned into a hotel.
Sure, there were some logistical problems associated with having a club night in a building originally designed to worship the Lord. Such as a cloakroom that ran out of rack space. Or a bar with no beer. Or there being only two small bathrooms.
To beat the toilet queue, some of us may have (allegedly) used an unlit bathroom. I used the light of my mobile phone to illuminate the pitch-black room and was confronted by a shower stall of unimaginable horror. It was hard to tell how many people had used it before me, but one thing was for certain, if I dropped my phone it was going to stay dropped. It made the Trainspotting toilet scene look positively hygienic.
It was the latest I’ve stayed up for a long time, so our gang of three spent the Sunday leisurely exploring the flea markets down the road (where I found a kick ass 1970s radio/turntable unit with the frequencies of major Euro cities inscribed on the white plastic top) and then a spell of promenading around the lake at Elsene with a fortifying cone of frites.
Apart from raging in a church in the early hours of Sunday, the weekend in Brussels was a chilled affair – probably the best way to enjoy the city. It’s a little cliched, but if you focus on the key aspects of beer, frites and chocolate, then you can’t go wrong.
When in Brussels Backpack Storybook now stays at the leisure of Her Majesty (and I don’t mean gaol). Thanks Timmy!
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