The 5 oddest things in Brussels

Most toilets in bars and cinemas are maintained by a woman affectionately known as Madame Pipi. She is normally found seated at a small table decorated with a vase of plastic owers, reading a celebrities magazine. She expects to be paid about 50 cents. The tips she receives are her only source of income.

You see them everywhere. And if you don’t see them, you hear them. Over the past few decades, Brussels has been invaded by green parakeets. It started in 1974 when the owner of a local zoo released about 50 birds into the wild because, he said, Brussels needed more colour. Now there are an estimated 8000 colourful birds nesting in the trees on Place Guy d’Arezzo and in several city parks.

Some years ago, the people who run the Brussels metro decided to stop playing muzak all day. They developed a playlist with songs to match the time of day. The music is cheerful in the morning, becoming more edgy around 4 pm when schools come out and ending with classical music after 9 pm in a bid to stop kids loitering on the platforms.

The artist Emilio Lopez Menchero constructed a giant steel megaphone near the main railway station in 2006 as a monument to migrants. He was inspired by the Spanish rebel Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (who appeared in a film scripted by Ernest Hemingway making passionate speeches from a megaphone on the back of a truck).

Hidden behind the Théâtre Royal du Parc, the Vaux-Hall is one of the strangest buildings in Brussels. Constructed in 1783, it was modelled on an open-air theatre at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London. Abandoned for many years, the green wooden structure has now been carefully restored by skilled French craftsmen. Look out for summer concerts, dance and theatre performances held in this curious location.