"Home of one room in the marsh" a Brussels Travel Page by traveloturc

Bruxelles or Brussels is the capital of Belgium (de facto the entire Region serves as capital, but de jure only the City of Brussels is entitled to the title of capital city of Belgium) .The name Brussels comes from the old Dutch Bruocsella, Brucsella or Broekzele, which means "home consisting of one room, in the marsh". "Two of the three main institutions of the European Union - the European Commission and the Council of the European Union - have their headquarters in Brussels: the Commission in the Berlaymont building and the Council in the Justus Lipsius building facing it. The third main institution of the European Union, the European Parliament, also has a parliamentary chamber in Brussels in which its committee meet and some of its plenary sessions are held Brussels is also the political seat of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Western European Union (WEU) and EUROCONTROL, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.Brussels is a bilingual city (Flemish and French)

In 977 AD, the German emperor Otto II gave the duchy of Lower Lotharingia, the empire's western frontier to Charles, the banished son of King Louis IV of France. In 1041 the county of Brussels was taken over by Lambert I of Leuven of the Counts of Leuven (Leuven in this period a new castrum and the first city walls were built. Charles V, became the new archduke of the Austrian Empire and thus the Holy Roman Emperor of the Empire "in which the sun does not set". It was in the Palace complex at the Brussels' Coudenberg, that Charles V in 1555 abdicated. This impressive palace was destroyed in 1731 in a huge fire In 1695 Brussels was attacked by general Villeroy of King Louis XIV of France. A bombardment destroyed the city's heart: more than 4000 houses were set on fire, including the medieval buildings at the Grote Markt or Grand Place.In 1830, the Belgian revolution took place in Brussels after a performance of Auber's opera La Muette de Portici at De Munt or La Monnaie theatre. On July 21, 1831, Leopold I, the first King of the Belgians, ascended the throne.From May 10, 1940, Brussels was bombed by the German army.

Brussels sprouts is one of the well known vegetables that reminds you the city along the laces of Brussels