It was a short trip: Rammstein played on Saturday evening, and I kept Sunday morning for the city: from Cinquantenaire Park, through the Grand-Place, all the way to a James Bond exhibition. So this post is more of a photo album than a long story.
Rammstein at the King Baudouin Stadium
The concert took place on 5 August 2023 at the King Baudouin Stadium, as part of the Europe Stadium Tour. Rammstein live is above all a spectacle, although a phone camera keeps little more of it than lights above the crowd.
Sunday morning in the centre
The next day, Sunday 6 August, I headed into town early in the morning. It was cloudy and wet, so the sky is grey in most of the photos, but the streets were still almost empty.
I started in Cinquantenaire Park, under the triumphal arch you can see from far away. From there I walked past the European Parliament to the Royal Palace, and on to the Congress Column and the Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula.
Then came the Grand-Place, the main square with the town hall and the old guild houses. A few minutes' walk away stands Manneken Pis, the statue hardly anyone leaves Brussels without a photo of, and not far from it I also came across a colourful BXL sign made of flowers.
House of European History
Before eleven I looked into the House of European History in Leopold Park, a museum run by the European Parliament. There were Polish touches too, such as a Solidarity poster, and one of the display cases held two electric guitars.
A bullet-riddled Aston Martin
The last stop was Autoworld, the car museum in Cinquantenaire Park, which was hosting an exhibition about James Bond. Among other things it had an Aston Martin DB5 with its bodywork full of bullet holes, as if straight after the chase in “No Time to Die”.
The same building also has completely different vehicles, from a gilded carriage to a small Isetta-style electric car.
So the Sunday walk ended in Cinquantenaire Park, where it had begun that morning, and the whole trip fitted into one weekend.