Usually, when we are on holiday, I subject Fegrig to visiting knitting shops. Why are you not surprised? I have an eclectic selection of dpns from North America, Japan and various European cities. This craft-souvenir shopping is not a new addiction habit, I used to collect fabric which was equally small and portable and relatively inexpensive - and of course, useful.
Tucked away in the pages of the unlikely AA Brussels guidebook we borrowed from my in-laws, was the suggestion that it might be worth visiting an art shop which produced its own pigments.
I was expecting a small arty type shop but instead we found what can only be described as an emporium of colour.
These are iPhone photos taken fairly discreetly because I wasn't sure they would be happy about photos.
The shop was like Awkrights.
Except that it was about five times as full of stuff.
Each of the side windows you can see was full to a depth of about a metre. And there was a corridor about a metre wide up the centre, with not enough width for two people to pass. And to the left of that was a counter which ran the full length of the shop, also about a metre wide... and every centimetre was piled high with colour.
Paints, pencils, dyes, you name it, they had it.
You want raw pigment? They had that too. This is just the sample chest.
They don't just sell it, they make it.
The front window was stuffed with huge jars of powder, as if it was a sweetie shop - which of course to me, it was.
Not a lid in sight.
Health and Safety? Clearly they LAUGH in the face of Health and Safety!
Behind the counter was a small walk-space, flanked by a wall which was covered in wooden drawers from floor to ceiling with a ladder to reach the higher ones, a bit like an old apothecary shop. The sort of shop which is in another world (they have no website and do not do mail order).
I was entranced, it was a truly magical place where nothing short of alchemy was happening.
And yes, I did buy some dye, but I had a difficult task because there were forty-eight hand made colours from which to choose.
It might have been a bit of a busman's holiday, but it was a wonderful place.
n