12th October Brussels

 ** In 1895 the hotel Metropole opened its doors in Brussels, and in 2020 it finally closed them, thanks to Covid (according to the doorman at the Metropole Cafe).

The Hotel Métropole is famous for having hosted numerous national and international events, including the first Solvay Conference on Physics and Chemistry held in 1911, which brought together personalities such as Einstein, Marie Curie and Henri Poincaré, as well as many other intellectual leaders of the scientific world at that time, most of whom had or went in to receive Nobel prizes in their fields.

I stayed at the Metropole in 1983. It was an amazing establishment even though my room was literally the size of the single bed stuck under the stairs. I supposed I was star-struck back then and just wanted to walk in the shadow of the giants of science. I still have the "do not disturb" hanging sign from my hotel room that now hangs on the door of the study at home.

I have learned a lot about the world since then. It is one thing standing on the shoulders of giants, it is another walking in their shadows. I now walk in the sun because when one is in the shadows there is so much you are unable to see or understand.

** Images from my walk to the museum centre 

Musée Fin-de-Siècle 

The Great Masters museum 

 

Exhibition of Renee Magritte