Chapter 394: The World Heritage Square
The square where the company is located is called the Grand Place of Brussels.
As the capital of Belgium and the entire European Union, there are not many places of interest to visit in Brussels, but there is one place that people who have never been to and who do not want to leave: the Grand Place in the heart of the city.
This small square is a unique square that does not need to be attached to others, and it is "the most beautiful square in Europe".
In 1998, UNESCO inscribed Brussels' Grand Place on the World Heritage List as a cultural heritage.
Located in the heart of the city, Brussels' Grand Place was built in the 12th century and is surrounded by Gothic buildings that resemble burning flames.
The floor of the square is paved with granite, and the minimalist style and bright pictures reflect the cultural character of the city.
Most of the buildings around the square are built in the Middle Ages in Gothic, Renaissance, Louis XIV and other architectural forms, and their architectural styles are different, making people feel like they are in the Middle Ages. For a long time, the Grand Place was the place where important events were held in Brussels, where emperors and kings paid their respects. The Grand Place is the attraction here.
Every two years in August, the city government holds a four-day "Flower Carpet Festival" in the main square, displaying the world's largest man-made "flower carpet".
The square is full of life, with bars, chocolate shops and restaurants dotted around the square, where people sit and relax. The French writer Victor Hugo, who also lived in the red-glazed room on the second floor of the restaurant opposite the town hall, praised it as "the most beautiful square in the world".
The Swan Restaurant is where Marx and Engels once lived, and it was here that the famous Communist Manifesto was written.
For geographical and historical reasons, the urban area of Brussels has a pentagonal shape, bounded by the central street, and is divided into two parts, the upper and the lower.
The Upper Town was home to the royal aristocracy, with majestic buildings such as the Royal Palace, the Grand Court, the Art Gallery and the Cathedral. After the large slope from the upper town is the lower city where the burgher class gathers.
The Grand Place de la Brussels is tucked away in this large area of residential buildings, hidden by the crisscrossing of ancient streets and ordinary houses. To see it, you have to pass through one of the six alleys that connect it, slowly following the crowd of people. When you come to the end of the alley, it is like a river flowing into the sea, and the crowd suddenly disperses, and the large square is in front of you.
The main square is rectangular in shape, 110 meters long and 68 meters wide. Its low-key and introverted concealment gives people a wonderful experience from narrow to open, from cramped to comfortable.
The surprise and pleasure of seeing the square is enough to quickly eliminate the fatigue of the journey, and if you count from the earliest construction of the town hall, the Grand Place of Brussels has a history of more than 600 years.
In the 13th century, a bakery, a cloth shop and a butcher's shop were added. In the 14th century, significant changes took place, with the emergence of the town hall. For centuries, the Grand Place has been the place where important events are held in Brussels.
Emperors and kings worship here. Martial arts competitions have been held many times. The Counts of Egmont and Hornis lost their heads here.
François Annison was guillotined.
The Grand Place witnessed the quarrel between the poets Verland and Rimbaud. Where Victor Hugo settled down when he lived in exile. The town hall, which began construction in 1402, occupies most of the square. It was largely completed by 1480.
The dazzling 91-metre-high minaret, designed by architect Jane Van Ruizbroec for the Duke of Bergunti, dates back to the 50s of the 15th century.
In 1515, Charles V, Duke of Brabant, had to demolish the dilapidated house and rebuild the splendid masterpiece we see today.
The Restoration of 1767 destroyed most of the building, so the building was almost completely renovated from 1872 onwards.
From 1872 to 1895, the palace was rebuilt according to the original layout of 1515, retaining some of the old buildings. The interior of the new building is a public museum.
Since 1971, every two years, on the weekends around 15 August, Brussels Square has been marked by a grand celebration: the laying of a tapestry. The tapestry is made from begonias grown in the Ghent region, designed with a different theme each time, and the amount of flowers used is up to 800,000 plants.
The Grand Place in Brussels plays an important role in the entertainment life of its citizens. Around the New Year, it's a Christmas market where people shop and party, and every May, Brussels' annual "Summer Beach Volleyball Tournament" is held, where people pile up sand from the beach in the open space of the square to enjoy the excitement of beach sports.
Every two years in August, the "Grand Square Flower Carpet Festival" is held, and people cover the granite floor of the square with hundreds of tons of flower petals, and the square becomes a sea of flowers.
In the morning, the square is a flower market, and in the evening, the flowers come to the birds, and it becomes a bird market.
On the balcony on the second floor of the town hall, couples often greet relatives, friends and visitors in the square after registering their marriage in front of the mayor, receive cheers and blessings from the people, and then get into the limousine, lead the convoy around the square, and drive all the way to the street outside.
These activities, these scenes, all contain a wealth of humanistic interest and market atmosphere, so that you can't help but respond to the aria of the great writer Hugo: this is really a colorful stage.
The magnificent square is a medieval building and a symbol of Brussels' wealth.
Most of the buildings in the world-famous Grand Place in Brussels are Gothic, Renaissance, and Louis XIV buildings built in the Middle Ages. The architecture is varied and gives you the feeling of being in the Middle Ages.
There is a 5-storey building on one side of the square, which is the famous Swan Café, also known as the Swan Restaurant. It was the place where Marx and Engels lived and worked, and is adjacent to the famous town hall, named after a white swan with flapping wings on the door.
In February 1845, Marx moved from Paris to Brussels, where he lived. In April of the same year, Engels also moved from Paris. From then on, the Swan Café became an important place for them to co-found the Communist Communications Committee and the German Workers' Association.
During this period, Marx wrote the famous works "The Poverty of Philosophy" and "The Communist Manifesto". Swan Cafe is also called Swan Restaurant. The apartment of the famous French writer Victor Hugo is located on the left side of the Swan Restaurant.
There is also a nearby building, which was once the residence of Louis XIV of France, and is now a museum.
To the right of the Grand Place is the stylized and majestic Brussels Town Hall. It is a typical ancient Flemish Gothic building, with a magnificent shape, ethereal and towering, and eye-catching.
Built in 1402, the town hall tower is about 91 meters high, and at the top of the tower is a 5-meter-high statue of Saint Michel, the patron saint of the city of Brussels. The main door of the town hall is not in the middle, and the hall tower is slightly off-the road.
In fact, the reason why the hall tower and the gate are not in the center is because the entire building was built in three different periods, so the scale appeared. The interior of the hall is exquisitely decorated, with wonderful patterns painted on the ceiling, intricately carved balustrades, and snow-white marble stairs winding up like a silver snake.
The corridors are covered with colorful murals. Among the many monumental portraits are portraits of Belgian monarchs, kings of Spain, the Netherlands, France, and other countries that once ruled Brussels, as well as portraits of Napoleon, who swept across the continent and was called the "Hero of the One".
In addition, the square is surrounded by famous buildings such as the 17th-century professional guild seats, the duke's residence, the stone buildings of the medieval era, and the palace of Louis XIV.
In 2010, a "flower carpet" with an area of about 2,000 square meters appeared on the square of Brussels, the capital of Belgium, attracting a large number of tourists.
This unique carpet is made up of about 700,000 flowers such as begonias of various colors, and is on display until August 15, 2010.
The whole carpet is rectangular in shape, composed of flowers of different colors to form various patterns, distributed in symmetrical forms, rich and brilliant colors.
The four corners of the tapestry are two symmetrical motifs, one of which is the symbol of the city of Brussels, "Saints Descending the Dragon", and the other is a beautiful yellow iris pattern, and in the center of the tapestry is a circular combined fountain.
When night falls, the coloured lights of the fountain are reflected in the beams cast on the ancient buildings surrounding the main square.
The "flower carpet" in Brussels is known as the world's largest man-made "flower carpet". Brussels hosts a "carpet of flowers" every two years, first held in 1971.
On August 12, 2010, at the Grand Place in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, the audience admires the carpet of flowers that has been laid.
On the same day, the biennial carpet of flowers on the Grand Place in Brussels was laid and began to welcome visitors. The flower carpet covers a total area of about 2,000 square meters, and about 600,000 begonias and other flowers are used.
The biennial August "Grand Place Flower and Carpet Festival" has become a major event for the citizens of Brussels. On the occasion of the "carpet festival", the people on the square are like mountains and seas, a fairyland in the painting, the center of the square is paved with colorful flowers into a huge rectangular "carpet", "carpet" is set up in the middle of three circular fountains, the falling beads splash jade like a brilliant light wave, constitute the "flower carpet" strange and beautiful pattern.
The "flower carpet" consists of more than a million begonias. These colourful begonia flowers come from the countryside of the Ghent region, about 100 kilometres from Brussels, and are carefully collected by flower growers, transported to Brussels overnight, and carefully woven by florists to form a sea of flowers.
In 1994, in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Belgium by the Allied and Belgian armies in World War II, the florists gathered into a "flower carpet" of more than 1,600 square meters, and the "carpet" was woven with the military emblem of the "Billund Brigade", the first Belgian army to set foot on Belgian soil that year.
The bright sunshine shines on this gorgeous and colorful "flower carpet" in a colorful and magnificent way, and the bunches of begonia flowers compete for beauty, and the bursts of refreshing and intoxicating floral fragrance are more colorful and fragrant because of that unforgettable history.