The art of getting to know Belgium

LEGEND has it that sometime in the 11th century, in a region now part of Brussels, a two-year-old duke saved his troops by urinating on enemy soldiers from the branches of a tree. Centuries later, an artist immortalised the pint-sized hero in bronze, and today, the statue of the Manneken Pis (Dutch for “little pissing man”) is recognised by locals as a symbol of the Belgian spirit: playful, inventive, down-to-earth, and subtly subversive. 

To outsiders, these characteristics might seem surprising.

Belgium can appear buttoned up, even boring, beneath its “serious” labels: de facto capital of Europe, home to the European Union and many political international organisations.