Europe in Brussels part 4: Spanish community and culture

For Spaniards the world over, 12 October is La Fiesta Nacional, the principle Spanish holiday on the calendar.

"It's the feast day to honour the Virgin Mary, with certain events connected to this, such as the famous Fiestas del Pilar in Zaragoza,” says Felipe Santos, director of the Brussels centre of the Cervantes Institute.

The main events in Brussels will take place at the Spanish Embassy, with an official reception on the previous evening, 11 October. However during the summer, Santos explains that the institute holds a separate celebration.

“Here in Brussels we have the international day of Spanish in June, because the weather is better then. We call it 'el dia E' (E denoting Español). It’s an international feast as all Cervantes centres around the world do the same. It’s an open day for people to find out about our language and culture.”

Spanish community and culture in Brussels

According to the Spanish embassy there are more than 60,000 Spaniards registered in Belgium, one of whom is Alessia Calderalo Garcia. Hailing from Madrid and living here since 2013, she works for the public relations company Cambre Associates. She came for an "international working experience" as well as to improve her French.

"Brussels isn’t too big so it’s easy to walk around. It's very international and very easy to meet interesting people and to make friends. It’s a very beautiful city and very liveable," she says.

Despite her affection for Brussels, Madrid for Calderalo Garcia is still "the best city on earth". She says: "I usually go back there once a month. It’s easy to fly there from Brussels and isn’t too expensive. However here I have many Spanish friends who I meet almost every day."

If you are looking for Spanish cuisine in the Belgian capital,there are many restaurants and bars, specifically Centro Cabraliego (Rue Haute 171) for good priced tapas and beers: "Me and my friends always go there when we feel like going home but aren’t able to. It’s like stepping back into Spain," says Calderalo Garcia.

For culture she agrees that the Cervantes institute is the place for both Spaniards and others to check out. “It’s a very nice place for us to go, especially when we’re feeling homesick – they have a huge library with a fantastic collection of CDs and DVDs.”

Named after the Spanish literary giant Miguel de Cervantes, author of the legendary novel Don Quixote, the institute was founded in 1991 to promote the teaching of the Spanish language and culture worldwide and has 87 centres in 44 countries.

“Our core activity is the language courses,” says Santos adding “there is also a lot of cultural life in the centre surrounding Cervantes’ literature, plus music concerts, discussions between writers and a large library with 33,000 volumes”.

“We also have films from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. We’re currently running two cinema courses as well, with one related to the actor, writer and director Fernando Gomez to promote his work; the other is related to the study of Spanish TV series that were produced over the last 10 years, which is good for learning Spanish also.”

Spanish-Belgian relations

In terms of the institute’s assimilation into the Brussels’ cultural sphere, Santos explains that it collaborates with local institutions such as Bozar, and also took part in this year’s Flanders Festival.

“We had a beautiful day devoted to Spanish culture at the Flanders Festival in Mechelen last spring. It was the first edition that included a Spanish day devoted to aspects of Spanish culture. There was also a public reading of Quixote in Dutch, with locals from Mechelen participating. One of the local bookstores told me they sold the largest amount of Quixote books for several years.”