Travel Belgium About Brussels Upper Town Mont Des Arts And The Place Du Musee
Métro: Parc .
The wide stone stairway that cuts up through the Mont des Arts also climbs the slope marking the start of the Upper Town - and thereby serves as an alternative to the Galerie Ravenstein. The stairs begin on
place de l'Albertine , where the figure of Queen Elizabeth, bouquet in hand, stands opposite a statue honouring her husband,
Albert I , who is depicted in military gear on his favourite horse. Easily the most popular king Belgium has ever had, Albert became a national hero for his determined resistance to the Germans in World War I. He died in a climbing accident near Namur, in southern Belgium, in 1934. Flanked by severe 1940s and 1950s government buildings, the stairway leads to a piazza, equipped with water fountains and gravel footpaths, and then carries on up to rue Ravenstein, from where there are wide views over the Lower Town.
At the top of the stairway, on the right, a short flight of steps leads up to the place du Musée , a handsome cobbled square edged by a crisp architectural ensemble of sober symmetry, subtly adorned by Neoclassical sculptures - urns, cherubs and so forth. Two sides of the square date from the nineteenth century and are now part of the Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts, as is the hole in the middle, which allows light to reach the museum's subterranean floors. On the north side, however, are the five salons of the
Appartements de Charles de Lorraine , all that remain of the lavish palace built for Charles de Lorraine, the Austrian governor-general from 1749 to 1780. The salons reflect Charles's avowed enthusiasm for the Enlightenment: he viewed himself as the epitome of the civilised man and fully supported the reforms of his emperor, Joseph II (1741-90), though these same reforms - especially the move towards a secular society - created pandemonium amongst his fiercely Catholic Flemish and Wallonian subjects. Recently restored, and scheduled to be open to the public in the next couple of years, the salons feature attractive marble floors and a plethora of Rococo decoration, with Greek gods and cherubs scattered everywhere. Charles could never be accused of false modesty: stucco work proclaims the duke's military prowess and celebrates his skills as an alchemist. In case anyone missed the point, the statue of Hercules, just inside the main entrance bears the duke's face.
Charles built his own private chapel next door - he was well-known as a rake, so presumably it was handy for confession - and he decorated it in suitably ornate style, dripping with delicate stucco work and glitzy chandeliers. After his death, no one knew quite what to do with it, but in 1804 the chapel was turned over to the city's Protestants, becoming the
Église Protestante de Bruxelles (visits by appointment only; tel 02 513 23 25).
