Brussels demo guide
Posted by Sitemaster on September 9, 2007
Please use white cardboard for the rally cries for your signs
STOP ISLAMISATION OF EUROPE!
NO SHARIA HERE!
DEMOCRACY NOT THEOCRACY!
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Good advice: Bring an umbrella. It’ll help a lot if it stats to rain hard!
Luxembourg Place is not large. The signal to move off from the assembly point will be stewards raising white objects in their hands at the allotted time.
After the demonstration please don’t carry your signs around in the town. You’ll easily be recognised as a participant in the demonstration.
SURVIVAL GUIDE TO BRUSSELS
USEFUL NUMBERS:
Emergencies & Ambulance 112
Police 101
Red Cross 105
Legal help: 0475 47 24 55
Are you lost during the demo: 0474 89 53 73 or 0485 52 95 05 or 0472 479 722 or 0472 479 805
Remember: The phones are not open before tuesday morning. We will provide you with some more numbers monday. FOOD:
Restaurants are generally of a high quality and reasonably priced as long as
you avoid obvious tourist traps.
Budget Eating:
The best value is a chain of self-service restaurants called LUNCH GARDEN.
There’s a good one in the INNOVATION Department store in the Rue Neuve,
a pedestrian street parallel to Place de Brouckere. Go to the Lunch Garden grill
counter and they’ll cook you a steak, pork chop or chicken piece in front of you.
Can be hectic at peak hours.
The local McDonalds imitation is QUICK BURGER. They’re everywhere.
They serve wine and beer too.
The local version of KFC is HECTOR CHICKEN. There’s one on the PLACE
DE BROUCKERE (metro: Brouckere.)
Restaurants:
Steak and chips (‘steck-frites’) must be the national dish. Other local
dishes include ‘waterzooi’ (soup with chunks of chicken) and ‘carbonade’
(Beef stewed in beer.) Round off your meal with a waffle (‘gauffre’) with ice-cream
or fresh cream.
The restaurants and cafes along either side of the BOURSE (the old stock
exchange building that looks like a Greek temple) are mostly reliable and
popular with locals as well as tourists. The FALSTAFF is a traditional
place with a good reputation. A big meal around here should cost about
£10/15 a head. Check out the daily Specials (‘plat du jour’) or set menu
for bargains.
Avoid the restaurant area known as the ‘Ilot Sacre’ in the narrow
streets around the Rue des Bouchers. It’s colourful but over-priced.
The back streets around the Grand Place have lots of bars and small restaurants
too, including decent pizza places. Avoid kebab joints.
The area known as ST CATHERINE’S has more upmarket restaurants,.
many specialising in seafood.
DRINK
No lack of beers to choose from. Stella Artois, Ekla and Jupiler are popular.
Try some of the less well-known types like gueuze, lambic, kriek or ‘white
beer’ (biere blanc.)
A white coffee is a ‘café au lait’. A creamy coffee is a ‘café crème’. A latte type
milky coffee is known as a ‘lait russe’.
TRANSPORT
Brussels has a reliable transport system with a metro (underground), buses
and some remaining trams. Any journey costs 2 Euros including
changes in transit.
SAFETY
Brussels is generally pretty safe especially around the Grand Place district.
Watch out for pick pockets in tourist areas and on crowded buses and trains.
The areas around the Midi Station and North Station are best avoided at night.
Same for the area around the Botanical Gardens.
September 9, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I live in Brussels. You write:”Avoid the restaurant area known as the ‘Ilot Sacre’ in the narrow streets around the Rue des Bouchers. It’s colourful but over-priced.” That is correct. And it’s not very healthy either. You also write:”The local McDonalds imitation is QUICK BURGER.” This is not true. Quick is quick and McDonalds is McDonalds (you have one at the Bourse, on the other side of the Boulevard Anspach), my experience is that nearly all the restaurants at the Bourse are ok. Brussels at night is not very safe. Never go anywhere alone at night. And as you state: watch out for pickpockets. (i live here since more than 10 years, and they got me twice)
September 10, 2007 at 11:09 am
It’s very nice of you to provide such a guide for non-belgian people attending the demo, but if I may I’ll do a little “nitpicking” about Hector Chicken (”KFC-like”): as anybody who takes the metro in Brussels can confirm, Hector Chicken promotes its restaurants with a big “HALAL FOOD” mention. For me, that’s enough never to spend a cent there…
(http://www.toustemoins.com/Doc/Hector.jpg if you want to see the poster)
September 10, 2007 at 9:43 pm
That is really true, but when you go to a ‘hector chicken’, you will see that almost no belgian people work there. But i will be fair and frank: i am not a racist. But i do agree that the muslims are wiping away our culture. It gets very much mixed up. And they behave and react otherwise than us. Although must be said, I have a lot of muslim friends. A lot among them are really behaving like us, but when it comes to religion, they are all as dangerous. They just don’t think anymore. One day, I was in a taxi (cab), and the radio was tuned on a catholic radiostation I was working for at the time, the taxidriver being a muslim, i asked him:”You listen to our catholic station, and you are a Muslim, there are islamic radiostations in Brussels, how come you listen to ours?” His answer was fair:”Because you people talk with your heart and soul when it comes to religion, the muslims on the other hand, they talk with their instinct, and that has nothing to do with religion.” I was surprised and happy when he said that. And I really want you to know, that more and more muslims talk that way.
September 28, 2007 at 6:32 pm
it is funny how you are afraid of muslims. do not worry we will not eat you! you do not know what islam reaaly is. Forget the clichees, use your brain. greets..