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Image by Renata Riva
Every main city of the world has a river, or a harbor. But Brussels, at first sight looks like a city without water.
But that’s not true.
Once upon a time the river Zenne crossed through the city. By the end of the 19th century it was decided to build boulevards on top of the river, causing it to end up disappearing from the Brusseler’s mind.
Many of the inhabitants of Brussels will only know the Zenne from the signs on the highway. However right in the city center there’s a small hidden corner where you can see a glimpse of it. What you can see there is just the (reconstructed) original bedding of the Zenne, but not the Zenne itself. You can see it at the Grande écluse building near the Midi station.
This river was never very clean but in the last years efforts have been made to clean it and now its waters are clear and big fish swim in it.
I like to enter in this small courtyard to get away from the bustling noise of the center, of course before heading to the nearby Place St. Gery for a drink.
Enter through the iron gate and go to the left. Be quiet and respectful, this is a private area which is open to visitors during the day to give us this nice chance to discover a bit more about Brussels.
La Zenne | Art & culture, Relaxing | Free
Place Saint-Géry 23
10:00 – 18:00 daily (subjected to changes depending on owners)
great to read about Brussels here !!
Sorry! I swear I did not mean to rhyme that last bit.
Finding this made it hard for me to breath. I want to be there again or maybe really be back to the time I was there. I lived literally 300 feet from this location and never knew it existed.
I never guessed there were buildings inside of buildings – haha – love Google maps! I have found through the internet so maybe places I missed seeing and now I fear I will never be able to return to this place. We always said we’d be back. Enjoy everything when you can, life rarely goes as planned.
Ana,
no worries, I am just so glad that I could give you a small flashback to a previous time.
Come back if you can, there is lots more to discover!
Renata
Brussels is a magic city, full of surprises!!
I went to see the Zenne today, and was surprised to see fish swimming….
Me, like the blog! But: some of the information is completely wrong.
**The Senne was not covered in the 20th century, but as a result of an ambitious plan of the liberal politician Jules Anspach in 1860 to remold Brussels in a Parisian way. In Paris, after the Commune, new boulevards were built by Haussmann to sanitize some medieval parts of the city (and to allow troops to march into them if a new populist insurrection would happen). In Brussels, the sanitization argument was also used to demolish the popular, still quite medieval parts of the city and to develop new bourgeois quarters along new boulevards, build by liberal entrepreneurs who owned the buildings along them for one century. (The buildings have been transferred to the city of Brussels sine a few decades).
**What you can see at the St.Gery is the (reconstructed) original bedding of the Senne, but not the Senne itself. You can see it at the Grande écluse building near the Midi station.
**For several decades, the Brussels region has refused to built a sewage plant, so that the river polluted flemish Brabant (where it can be seen in Vilvorde among other cities)
**Further reading: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_of_the_Senne
**And no: theSenne is not called after the Seine
**And no: the Senne vally is not the only place in the world where you can brew lambic, but certainly the best place to taste it.
Original spot indeed !
In French, it’s called Senne, and is actually a homonym of Parisian river Seine !!! ;-)
But I found it on the Place Saint-Géry 23, and not Rue Pletincks (by the way, Rue Pletinckx seems to pass directly from number 19 to number 25 !!!)