Every two years, the Grand Place of Brussels holds the famous "Tapis de Fleurs", where about a million begonias are laid out in exquisite detail to create a 3,000 square foot carpet of flowers.
Floral Architect, Mark Schautteet drew his inspiration for this years design from a real 18th century carpet made by the French factories "La Savonnerie."
This event, which began in 1971, reminds the world that Belgium is one of the biggest producers of begonias -- exporting about 48 million bulbs a year. In addition, the flower carpet reminds everyone that Belgium is one of the world’s largest makers and exporters of machine made carpets.
The carpet was created and displayed from August 15th through 17th -- perfect timing as we just got back from our summer holiday on the 16th! Just as beautiful as I imagined it to be, it was well worth the trip to town to check it out. Since Ray and DS were perfectly happy to view the carpet from the ground, PS and I waited in line and paid our 3euros to access the town hall's balcony (which was opened to the public on this occasion) to get an aerial view of the carpet. It was well worth it! Not only did it offer us a beautiful view of the flower carpet, it was also really neat to see the Grand Place from this new vantage point. Very cool!
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