Tapis de fleurs 2010

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This past weekend, Eric and I made our way over to Brussels since the famous "flower carpet" was happening. Sure, it doesn't sound all that impressive or anything, but that event happens once every two years. At least we can say we actually saw something like that, ya know?

We ended up leaving from Neerpelt around 8:30am since the train takes about two hours to get to Brussels. Luckily, some of our friends happened to be heading to the same place... So we had some entertainment for the majority of the ride.Once we reached Brussels Central, we all scattered to the winds since everyone has their own agenda. All Eric & I really wanted to do was check out the carpet, take the typical tourist pics, have lunch at a Chinese joint we found last time we were there, then roll out to Antwerp.

We made our way over to the carpet and the crowd really wasn't all thy bad. I guess I was expecting a total madhouse or something, but it seemed pretty mellow since we got there early enough.

We went over to the Grand Palace Hotel since they allowed people to use their balcony for the cost of 3€, which was pretty cheap, if you ask me. At first, the line looked insanely long, but it only took Bout 20 minutes from the back of the line to the actual balcony. Here's some pics from while we were waiting:

The statues along the building were AMAZING! I loved the detail on the womens dresses / corsets :

 Some surrounding shots of the Grace Palace courtyard..tons of cafe's, lil restraunts and chocolate shops:

Pool statue for the inner courtyard:

I was really diggin' the ironwork for the courtyard:

 Figured this would be kinda artistic looking:

LOOK! An actual picture of the current King & Queen of Belgium!

It was pretty cool since you walked past several different rooms that had to have been from the 1700's or so. Old furniture, carvings in the walls to hold light fixtures , damask tapestry for wallpaper...very elegant stuff! I wish I couldve gotten some pictures of it, but the security in the building wasn't allowing pictures (lame). So, once we got to the balcony area, I was able to find an opening and took some pictures without battling too many people. I was just getting slightly annoyed because some people were literally shoving me from behind to try to move me out of the way... I paid, you paid, we all paid to get here. Chill, people!

Here's some shots I was able to get from the balcony:

 

I went to the official site for this event (www.flowercarpet.be) and found some pretty interesting stuff this whole event. The following stuff is quoted from the site:

A Brief History

Officially, the first Floral Carpet as its present-day form was created in 1971 on the Grand-Place by the landscape architect E. Stautemans, but, in fact, it was the culmination of a whole series created in various towns in Flanders.

E. Stautemans, who was born in Zottegem, and graduated from the Ghent Horticultural College, had been experimenting since the early 50's making simple small carpets, more like rugs, mainly consisting of begonias (in Knokke, Oudenaarde, Sint-Niklaas, Lille…).

He very quickly realised that floral carpets would be an excellent vehicle for the promotion of his beloved begonias which he had always worked with, both technically, economically and aesthetically. After years of attempts and calculations, this architect, who was inventive and imaginative, and knew how to make the most of the numerous resources of begonias, became an expert in the creation of superb floral carpets with sophisticated colors and complicated designs.

His fame spread and he was asked to make carpets not only in Belgium (Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Ypres, Courtrai, Hasselt, Tongres, Mons, Durbuy, …) but worldwide (Cologne, Hamburg, Luxemburg, Paris, London, Breda, Amsterdam, The Hague, Vienna, Valencia, and as far afield as Buenos Aires and Colombus, Ohio).

Some of these carpets were bigger than the ones created in Brussels (77 x 24 m), like the 1973 masterpiece at Sint-Pietersplein, Ghent that reached a gigantic 164 x 42 m. However, as E. Stautemas himself says, "Nowhere is the carpet more beautiful and distinguished than in the unique, ancient surroundings of the Grand-Place in Brussels".

Making a Carpet

The actual making of the Carpet is based on a plan worked out in advance, consisting of several stages. Everything starts, often a year in advance, with projects and scale models, illustrating a commissioned theme (such as the commemoration of great events, or the arms and shield of a town, and sometimes the proposals of local horticultural associations).

Once the theme has been produced in representation and symbol, the number of flowers and color combinations calculated and the outlines finally drawn on the ground, then the work starts.The skilful, dedicated work of a hundred experienced gardeners and their enthusiasm enables them to put together this giant floral jigsaw in under four hours.

The day before, the spaces between the floral patterns will already have been filled with rolled turf.  Did you know - that the flowers are packed together one by one, 300 to every square meter of the ground, (+/- 750.000 flowers!) so tightly (no soil is used at all) that they won't be blown away by the first puff of wind, and create their own microclimate? In heat waves, the turf has to be watered to prevent it from shrinking, but if the weather is too wet, the grass can grow 4 to 5 centimeters in 3 days? The wonders of nature!

 Here's some pictures of past carpets:

2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

Educational, hunh? :)

Once we were done checking out the floral carpet, we headed on over to a Chinese restraunt we found back in December when we visited Brussels for their Christmas tree display.

 We chowed down on some awesome food and made our way back over to the train station. When we first got into the courtyard where the flowers were, we spotted some local artists working on some paintings of the area. Eric ended up getting a pretty cool piece that's done in pen and I got a piece that the guy was finishing up of the actual courtyard (I had to wait a few minutes for the paint to dry before he rolled it up for me):

Eric's picture:

Mine: 

We're wanting to get them professionally framed, but since it'd be too expensive to have done here.. we'll most likely wait till we're back stateside. Most of our other pictures have been framed through Aaron Brothers in Monterey, so odds are, they'll end up doing these for us.

All in all, we had a great day between Brussels and Antwerp (all we did in Antwerp was hit up Starbucks and hit up LUSH again). Even though I'm sure some people say "It's just a ton of flowers. What's the big deal?"...well, it's actually pretty awesome to see in person. Not only that, but it's a show of artistic ability to create something like that on such a grand level. 

* Two thumbs up! *