Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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On the other side of Rue de la Régence from the church is a leafy,
fenced-off garden called the...
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Place du Petit Sablon
This is a pleasant refuge from the busy
street, part of why this neighborhood is
considered so livable. The 48 small statues
atop the wrought-iron fence represent the
guilds—weavers, brewers, and butchers—
of medieval Brussels. Inside the garden,
10 large statues represent hometown
thinkers of the 16th century—a time of
great intellectual accomplishments in
Brussels. Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594),
the Belgian mapmaker who devised a way
to show the spherical Earth on a
flat surface, holds a globe.
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We'll visit the Sablon neighbor-
hood below the church later, but
before losing elevation, let's con-
tinue along Rue de la Régence,
passing the Music Academy and
Brussels' main synagogue (its side-
walk fortified with concrete posts to
keep car bombs at a distance), before
reaching the long-scaffolded...
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Palace of Justice (Palais de Justice)
This domed mountain of marble sits on the edge of the Upper
Town ridge, dominating the Brussels skyline. Built in wedding-
cake layers of Greek columns, it's topped
with a dome taller than St. Peter's in
Rome, rising 340 feet. Covering more
than six acres, it's the size of a baseball
stadium.
The palace was built in the time of
King Leopold II (son of Leo I, r. 1865-
1909) and epitomizes the brassy, look-
at-me grandeur of his reign. Leopold
became obscenely wealthy by turning
Africa's Congo region—80 times the size
of Belgium—into his personal colony.
Whip-wielding Belgian masters forced African slaves to tend
lucrative rubber plantations, exploiting the new craze for bicycle
tires. Leopold spent much of this wealth expanding and beautify-
ing the city of Brussels.
