I thought that I disliked Amsterdam. After my first day in Brussels, I realized that I didn't dislike Amsterdam; it was merely disappointing. It was not as charming as I expected; it was a little too cynically attached to tourism; it was just too rushed. But overall it wasn't so bad. Brussels on the other hand, is a nightmare, from top to bottom. The transportation system goes everywhere, but it requires two or three different connections to get anywhere (You Can't Get There From Here syndrome). There are three train stations of staggeringly different significance and levels of sophistication. Noord is a dung heap, there is no other other description for it, complete with the seedy street where the prostitutes appear in their windows (at 11 in the AM) running along the tracks. Apparently, they do exist in the wild and not just in the tame confines of Amtersrdam's red light district. Central Station is central only in terms of geography, though not in terms of significance. For most practical purposes, Central is basically irrelevant and out of the way. Zuid is where the action is, but it was also the farthest away from where we ended up staying.
The real problem with the transportation system is not the bizarre set of connections between places but the staggering incompetence with which the system is run. If you are lucky, on the major trains (like the subway or some of the trains between cities), they might announce the stations. If you are really lucky, the trains will actually stop where the schedule says they will stop. I discovered to my cost that this is not always the case. I wanted the Schaerbeek Station. The schedule said it was one stop away, a paltry four minutes. I boarded the train thinking that my travel day was almost over, a day that had begun at 1:00 AM (because I refused to be 24 euro for a reservation on the Belgian night train because the train would only have been in Belgium for an hour and a half - it costs 10 euro for all of Germany). The train passed through said station, but didn't stop for another 20 minutes in a place called Mechelen. I later discovered that this stop is halfway between Brussels and Antwerp. I took the train back to Brussel Noord and made no further attempt to get to that train station. Local transportation is much better at sticking to the posted script, but you will never see or hear what the next stop will be once you are in the tram or bus. No announcement, no monitor flashing the upcoming station, nothing (a stark contrast to Germany where every tourist who spends any time on public transport will have learned at least two German words "Nächste Halt . . .").
I can generally put up with a lack of information about stops and the like and I am always willing to walk if I make a mistake. If public transport runs regularly and is vaguely on time, I can make do. This is also not the case in Brussels. The very first tram my mom and I were on stopped dead in a tunnel a couple hundred yards from the station. After ten minutes, the conductor opened the doors and had the passengers hop down onto the tracks and over to the service path where we completed our journey to the station on foot. We were on our way to the train station to catch a train to Brugges, which we naturally missed. We were already planning to go to Brugges so I could make the most of the last trip on my railway pass. What began as a normal day trip became a necessity after the first two hours I spent in Brussels were so stupidly obstructive and cack handed. If it hadn't have been Brugges, it would have been anywhere else: Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven (hmm, Stella), Liege, Waterloo . . . Anywhere other than Brussels.
Brugges turned out to be as picturesque and as medieval as promised, but it is also a tourist trap, not the thing most calculated to soothe anyone's mood, especially as quite a few of the cafes and bistros closed up shop between 5 and 6 PM, right about when Mom and I were looking for a nice place to grab a bite. Brugges must have a Rothenburg/Martha's Vineyard thing about preserving it's medieval character, including shunning tourists after a certain point in the evening. We eventually found a place to eat: Quick Burger, the equivalent of McDonald's and just as tasteless. It was at least inexpensive.
To the credit of Brussels, the rest of our stay was not as bad as that first day. Public transport proved more reliable, though no more informative. The major exception was rush hour, when using the system became positively oppressive. None of their trains were designed with accommodating very many people, a strange decision in a city of nearly 2 million people.
If it seems like I am fixating on public transportation at the expense of the rest of the city, consider it evidence of my ambivalence about the place. Despite the fact that Brussels has a long and distinguished history in the region and that many of the older (though not the oldest) buildings have been preserved, it does not present itself particularly well. Brussels is first and foremost a city about business and getting things done. It has provided ways for visitors to explore some of the past, but the past that is most open to visitors relates to the near past and usually to the Belgian monarchy which only dates back to 1830. The most massive and monumental buildings all originate after that time. Many of them date from the reign of Leopold II, the infamously megalomaniacal king who considered the Belgian Congo his personal colony, though the city has much older roots, on display in the stunning Grand Place (where you can find Victor Hugo's old place), and in some of them gorgeous cathedrals in the area. I just can't make any sense of the city. There are things to visit, there is some beautiful architecture, and even quality museums, like the Magritte Museum and the Museum of Musical Instruments (the museum dedicated to the french fry is in Brugges though - french fries originated in Belgium, there's your fun fact for the day).
The best way for me to explain the city might be to compare it with Berlin ten years ago. Not all of the benefits of re-unification had made it to the eastern parts of the city yet. Much of the city was dingy or covered with graffiti. It was in the throes of integrating an enormous new population. Germany's modern economic success had not completely taken hold (indeed many of Schroeder's most important reforms were yet to come). Brussels, despite it's importance as a commercial and legislative center, has not yet experienced the economic success that will help bring it the kind of vision that could transform the city or give it a cohesive sense of direction. This is a malaise that afflicts Belgium as a whole, actually. As of the writing of this post, Belgium does not have a national government. Negotiations for coalition forming have stalled since the election in June.
I can say without reservation that the hostel I stayed in was the best of the entire trip. Calling Sleephere a hostel doesn't do it justice. The owner, Karel Mondt,, a gregarious and generous host, prefers to call it a guest house. It reminded me of the boarding houses of the 19th century that I read about in Balzac and Dickens, though with significantly less drama. Or closer to home, the hostel my friends and I found ourselves in ten years ago in Budapest. Sleephere is the owner's 4 story house, with every room not dedicated to eating or cooking transformed into sleeping quarters. It is a quaint old house with creaky wooden stairs and the idiosyncratic decorations that can only come from someone's personal accumulation and not from any conscious attempts at interior decorating. It was authentic and unforced. My mom hated it, but she is used to factory sleeping, which is what so many hostels have become (that's Karel's phrase, not my own). StayOkay in Amsterdam, the Y in Basel, even Metropole in Berlin, they are all like the Southwest Airlines of hotels. They offer great service while cutting facilities and extras to the bone. They are hotels in spirit now, rather than hostels as I remember them - the kind of place that you look for when you arrive in a town without a thought for reservations. The internet has almost completely done away with the cute personal pension that you discover tucked into the Place St. Michel, steps away from Notre Dame de Paris. It was a positive pleasure that my mom had discovered this place, even if she didn't particularly like it. We spent the last night in Brussels in a hotel by the airport and while I enjoyed the privacy and amenities on offer, the soullessness of the place just reinforced what I had already knew - hosteling is about character not convenience. We certainly found it on 155 Landbouwstraat, Schaerbeek. The only part of Brussels that I enjoyed unequivocally.
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