Brussels is the capital of Belgium, which can also be interpreted as one of the administrative regions of Belgium, the Brussels-Capital Region.
Of the three important institutions of the European Union, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers of the European Union are located in Brussels, and another important institution, the European Parliament, has a branch office in Brussels (the plenary parliament is in Strasbourg, France), so it is said that Brussels is the capital of Europe.
Also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is headquartered in Brussels.
Brussels is a bilingual city (French and Dutch), with French speakers in the majority.
Brussels Grand Place
Brussels Grand Place is located in the center of Brussels, the capital of the Kingdom of Belgium. Built in the 12th century, it is one of the most beautiful squares in Europe, and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998 as a cultural heritage site.
Brussels downtown is pentagonal, with the central street as the boundary, *** divided into two parts of the Upper City and Lower City.
The world-famous Brussels Grand Place is less than a hundred meters long and about thirty to forty meters wide, and the ground is paved with granite. The buildings around the square are mostly Gothic, Renaissance, Louis XIV and other architectural forms built in the Middle Ages. Its architectural style is different, so that people have a sense of being in the Middle Ages.
There is a 5-story building on the side of the square, the famous Swan Café, which was once the place where Marx and Engels lived and worked, adjacent to the famous City Hall, which was named after a white swan with wings on its door.
In February 1845, Marx moved from Paris to Brussels to live here. In April of the same year, Engels also moved from Barmen. Since then, the Swan Café became an important place for their *** with the creation of the ****ist Committee of Correspondence and the German Workers' Association. During this period Marx wrote his famous works such as The Poverty of Philosophy and The ****productivist Manifesto. Now the Swan Café is also called the Swan Restaurant.
The apartment of the famous French writer Victor Hugo is situated to the left of the Swan Restaurant. Nearby is another building, which was originally the palace of Louis XIV of France and is now a museum.
On the right side of the Grand Place is the unique and majestic Brussels City Hall. This is a typical ancient Flemish Gothic architecture, the shape of the magnificent, ethereal towering, striking. City Hall building was built in 1402, it is above the hall tower is about 91 meters high, the top of the tower is shaped with a 5-meter-high statue of St. Michael, the patron saint of the city of Brussels.
The main door of the town hall is not in the center, and the hall tower is also slightly off to the side. In fact, the reason why the tower and the main door are not in the center is that the whole building was built in three different periods, thus giving rise to the current size. The interior of the hall is beautifully decorated, with fabulous patterns drawn on the ceiling, finely carved balustrades, and a snow-white marble staircase that winds its way up like a silver snake.
The corridor is covered with colorful murals. In many huge portraits of the Belgian monarch, there were once ruled Brussels, Spain, Holland, France and other countries of the king's portrait, as well as swept the European continent, known as the "one of the world's heroes," Napoleon's portrait.
In addition, the square is surrounded by the 17th-century professional guilds, ducal residences, medieval-era stone buildings, Louis XIV's palace and other prestigious buildings.
The Grand Place was also the first market of the city of Brussels. Today, the Grand Place of Brussels has become a center of activity for the city's citizens. Every Sunday, the Grand Place has a flower and bird market, a hundred flowers, birds compete. Every two years in August, the Brussels City Hall will be held in the Grand Place for a period of four days "Grand Place Flower Carpet Festival", "flower carpet" laid in the center of the square, in a rectangular shape. In the middle of the "flower carpet" there are three round fountains in the constant fall of beads and jade, the scenery is harmonious and beautiful. It is known as the world's largest man-made "flower carpet".