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 River Senne meandered through Brussels up until the middle of the 19th century. It was then vaulted over in an attempt to stop the spread of cholera. Almost nothing has survived of the river, but a small but determined action group called les Fous de la Senne, the Senne Idiots, has launched a campaign to bring back the river. The Fous are not totally mad. They know the river can never be restored. So they have settled on bringing back hints of the river, like the thin trickle of water that runs down a gutter next to the Église Saint-Jacques.

Heads or tails, it means in French. This unique shop near Place Flagey is stacked full of unclaimed Amazon boxes. The mystery boxes are sold unopened, so buyers have no idea what is inside. It could be a smartphone (unlikely), or a box of purple wigs. The aim is to offer a quirky ecological solution to a modern problem.