One of the not-to-be-missed sights of Brussels is a small statue on an unremarkable corner several blocks away from the lovely historic square. His name is Manneken Pis and he’s a small, naked, bronze boy peeing into a fountain. I’m not entirely sure why this attracts so terribly much attention, as Europe is full of naked statues of all descriptions, but supposedly it captures the irreverent joy de vivre of the Belgian people, a trait of which they seem justifiably proud. I bet you didn’t know, for example, that the Smurfs were originally Belgian.
So the little peeing boy attracts a crowd of tourists at all hours of the day and night, as you can see in the picture. It’s tradition that he gets dressed up in costumes donated by different countries or groups. The day I was there, he was wearing military garb to commemorate the anniversary of some Belgian corps. In the shop across the way, you can see what he looks like unclothed, and buy any number of versions to take home with you. A particularly popular one features a corkscrew extending off the front.
The current statue is almost 400 years old, replacing an even older stone version. There are an abundance of legends explaining it, all of which seem entirely improbable to me (a two-year-old saved the city by dousing a canon fuse with his pee?). Anyway, it gives the tourists in Brussels something to do, and the merchants something to sell, and a museum a collection of costumes to take care of.
In the spirit of fairness, since 1987 there has been a small naked peeing girl statue, Jeanneke Pis, several hundred meters away, which the tour guide took us to see on Sunday morning, but she doesn’t get nearly the attention. Maybe she prefers it that way.













