Royal Greenhouses of Laeken (Brussels

Its a floral overload in my blog! But I can't help it, its spring now after a tiring, tiring, very tiring, looooongg winter (that's the effect of dealing with a newborn in autumn & winter!). So, once the weather showed some improvement, neither Atyudarini, nor I were interested in staying indoors. Following the floral boom in Belgian Tulip Festival and the Mystical Blue Forest, its now time for some Royalty to get involved!!!

Well, the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, as the name says belong to the Royal family of Belgium. It open its doors to the general public only 3 weeks a year (the actual palace is open to public for another 6 weeks following BalNational - Jul 22 to Sep 2). While the Palace is located centrally in Brussels, the greenhouses is located very close to Atomium. An very small entry fee is there to support Queen's Charities that helps in restoration of artworks at Royal Collection.

First things first, with Atyu in a stroller, with bigger plans for upcoming weekend, the mere crowd and the queue at the beginning point of the greenhouses was just scary. I really considered heading back without venturing in. But Mr.V cajoled me and we went in. Atyudarini and the crowd wasn't a good combo and I ended up wearing Atyu and the stroller was just a waste of space and our energy!

Usually, if I sense crowd, I visit the place early in the morning, as the first person, to avoid the crowd. However on that day, early morning was chill and the weather was good for 11AM onwards, so we left a bit late, The queue to get into the gardens was sooooo long that it took easily 30-45 mins to just get to the ticket counter! The visitor route first leads to the Orangery, which as the name suggests, has Orange trees in it, which were safeguarded here in winter and moved outside in summer. The next stop was the Theatre Greenhouses.

Beyond this was the long walk under open-sky to Palm Greenhouse, where the fore-mentioned queue was. But before this point were the most picturesque locations of this place. Long back, during my earlier trip to Brussels (before I moved here), I got lost and found myself walking in a street with some Japanese architecture, turns out its the Far East Museum belonging to the Royal Museums of Art & History. The view of its pagoda looks splendid from here! The vast expanse of greenery itself is just so pleasing to the eyes!

The queue moved and we did witness 2-3 people giving up and moving out with their kids in strollers. Mr.V's perseverance paid off and we went in. It was definitely gorgeous and reminded me of Barbican Conservatory with indoor water works and more, but moving in a queue at a particular pace did spoil the overall experience a bit.

One of the rooms here is called Queen Elisabeth's (nope, not England's one, the Belgium's one) studio - the room in which she played violin and created sculptures which were her hobbies! Today its maintained in the same way as it was when she stayed here. This is followed by corridor after corridor of extremely beautiful flowering plants and there were some with gorgeous sculptures too!

The route wraps with Winter Garden which is a huge circular room with high dome filled with such stunning beauty. This was the first greenhouse built for King Leopold II in 1880, designed by architect Alphonse Balat. It was intended to be used for Royal receptions! Its majestic, huge and imposing, but is it beautiful when compared to Winter Gardens of Ursuline nuns? No! This is just plain...

Its a beautiful place. Yes, it is! Good to go on weekdays if you're with kids. Atyu did get a bit flustered half way through but found a new friend in a little toddler who kept chatting with her and kept her calm. On weekends, yes it gets really really crowded, which is kinda obvious as its open only for 3 weeks a year!!!!!

To Get There:
Nearest Tram station: De Wand
Nearest Bus stop: Koninklijke Serres / Serres Royales
Its open only for 3 weeks every Spring.
The dates & timings are announced in the official website of Belgian Monarchie.
Entry fee: €2.50

Royal Greenhouses of Laeken (Brussels - Belgium)

Trending Articles

Bath man appears in court charged with attempted murder of a man...

MACLEAN, Allan

Black Angus Grilled Artichokes

Practice Sheet of Right form of verbs for HSC Students

Police blotter for Jan. 12

99 God Status for Whatsapp, Facebook

Rajasthan Board 12th Science Result 2018 name wise- RBSE 12th commerce result...

Notorious Naushad of Ippa gang nabbed

Child Kidnapping: Amy McNeil was kidnapped on her way to school by 5 adults;...

Sonible Smartlimit v1.1.5-R2R

NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Sanskrit Chapter 3 पाथेयम्

मतलबी दोस्त स्टेट्स | Matlabi Dost Status in Hindi – Selfish Friends Status

Arrow Flash 2 – Sinhala Dubbed – Episode 23 – 20th March 2016

[GET] AI Traffic Goldmine

[E² Plugin] HDF-Radio

Universal Multi-Patch v1.3 By RADIXX11

IWAN – Thanks and Praise ( Throw Back Thursday )

RONALD P SONDERGAARD Arrested by Miami-Dade County Corrections on Mar 03, 2017

मुख मैथुन से उठाएं सेक्स का भरपूर मज़ा, जानें क्या है इसका सही तरीकामुख मैथुन...

HSSC Excise & Taxation Inspector Result 2017 Scorecard/ Category Wise Merit List