Five Arts Societies come together in Brussels
At the beginning of June 2025 members of The Arts Society Nottingham, Oxford, Wensum, and Woodford Green met up with members of The Arts Society Brussels and were provided with useful information, a guided tour of the City Centre and offers of first hand support during the 4 days spent in Brussels.
How had this come about?
For some years I, Liz Holden, have organised an annual trip to a European city for a small group of friends in order to enjoy an opera as well as experience some of the cultural highlights each city offered. Over the last 10 years we have been to Copenhagen, Vienna, Riga, Brno, Berlin and Leipzig. The chosen destination for 2025 was Brussels. As it happens all of us are members of our respective TAS branches.
In readiness for devising a suggested itinerary, I had cut out various articles about Brussels including a very interesting article in The Winter 2024 copy of the Arts Society Magazine written by members of the Arts Society Brussels. With little expectation of a reply, I wrote an email to TAS Brussels asking for some advice on arts related venues that were a “must” for our group to visit.
After a very short time I received responses from several members of TAS Brussels offering both advice and offers of assistance. We met Judi and Ron after attending a morning concert at the Bozar Arts Centre and 3 other Committee members including Muriel the Chair joined them. We were provided with a fascinating tour that took in many of the city’s attractions including the
magnificent Grand Place and Ilot Sacre where the C15 Gothic Town Hall flanks gold-trimmed gables on houses built by merchant guilds in the C17. We visited the C19 Galeries St-Hubert shopping arcade and the Eglise Notre-Dame du Sablon with its beautiful stained glass windows. We were shown some of the small but beautiful city centre gardens and examples of the protected Art Nouveau Houses (Brussels is seen as the home of Art Nouveau). Finally Judi and Ron took us to sample the famous Belgian chocolates.
We followed advice that was given to us to visit a couple of destinations that were not on the usual tourist list. One was the Van Buuren House and gardens, a fine example of Art Deco. The other was the Frison-Horta House, an Art Nouveau private house where the current owner showed us round the lower floors. Our itinerary also included a trip to La Monnaie, the famous opera house where we saw a very modern interpretation of Bizet’s Carmen. Some of our group visited Autoworld where there is an extensive classic car collection, the Magritte Museum and the Museum of Old Masters, the Foundation Jacques Brel, the Comic Museum and finally we all went to view the house where Jeanne Dielman, the film directed by Chantael Akerman and rated by the BFI as the best film ever, was made.
Our visit was undoubtedly enhanced through the contact and help provided by members of the Committee of TAS Brussels. As Muriel, their Chair said to me; ”it made me feel very happy to know that we have visitors from The Arts Society who share the same interest in the arts and culture".
Date published: Sun 22nd Jun 2025
Updated: Sun 22nd Jun 2025