A tale of two cities

Keith Archer reports on the recent QCEA study tour in Brussels and Strasbourg

The study tour group in the plenary room of the European Parliament. | Photo: Courtesy of QCEA.

If you’ve never been to Quaker House in Brussels, you’re missing something. It’s a fine Art Nouveau former townhouse, recently restored to its original splendour by the Belgian government, on a corner overlooking a leafy square. And if you’ve never been to Brussels, you’re missing something. There is the Brussels of the Grand Place, the royal palace, the restaurants and the tourists – very much a European capital. There is also the Brussels of the European Union institutions – arguably ‘the’ European capital. And there is workaday Brussels, in areas like St Joss, where our hotel was, with many immigrants mostly from Turkey and North Africa.

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