Brussels

The next week we spent in Belgium. Leuven was a really nice university town about a half hour by train east of Brussels. The university is the oldest in Belgium and founded in 1425! M got settled into the conference and I took the train into Brussels to meet up with my brother. He is a Spanish teacher at the University of Utah and takes the study-abroad students to Spain each summer and was just sending them all home, so he came up to hang out with us for the week.

It was brilliant to have him as a fellow explorer of flea markets,

book stores, antique shops (this one we nicknamed "The Room of Requirement"; over 6,000 sq meters, jam packed to the ceiling!)

and general shopping. That sort of thing was more than I dared ask of my brave husband.

In the late 1800s, Brussels was a hot spot for Art Nouveau architecture and I am a huge fan and my brother is into architecture too. We went to the home (now a museum) of Victor Horta, the premier architect of the movement in Belgium. I was struck with a giddy attack of the happy dance when we could see the house down the street, but once inside it went way beyond the happy dance.

Quite literally I had a hard time breathing it was so stunning. No words for the elegance and sensitivity, and sadly, no photos either it was strictly verboden. Go to the museum's website for some peeks at the beauty.  We had a map with some addresses of other Art Nouveau buildings, all private residences, so we didn’t get inside any, but we had a fun time hunting them down. 

These architects and client were of the same sort as Frank Lloyd Wrights a couple of decades later in the US, in the sense that they went in for all the details down to the light switches and hinges, the whole shebang costum designed for each home.  Oh! I'd love to see inside some of these too!