Peeing statues in Brussels, Belgium

Before going to Brussels, I wanted to see the peeing boy statue, eat waffles and drink Belgian beer. I did all of that and more. Before leaving for Brussels, I read up on what to do there and discovered there are more peeing statues than the one peeing boy.

Belgians use the peeing boy symbol and change it according to their need. Like this one

Or this. They are pretty creative with that

The peeing boy statue, Manneken Pis. The statue is really small in real life

The Manneken Pis, meaning "Little Pisser", is from the 17th century with the exact year being unknown. The statue which is available to the public is a copy and the original is kept in the museum of the City of Brussels. The peeing boy statue is 61 cm tall. Belgians like to dress the boy up for special occasions like Christmas, football matches and also as movie characters, historical people, the list goes on.

The reason behind why the statue was erected is unknown but there are a couple legends about it. One story is that a father lost his son in the crowd and when he found the boy with the help of the villagers, he was peeing on the street. As a thank you for helping to find his son, the father gifted the statue to the village. Another one is, that the boy named Julianske was a spy during the siege of the city and he put out the bomb by urinating on the explosives. Or he put out a fire by peeing on it. There are many more stories.

Jeanneke Pis

As I mentioned before, there are other peeing statues in Brussels. One of them is the peeing girl called Jeanneke Pis, which was erected in 1987. Allegedly she is the sister to the peeing boy. Both siblings are protected with iron bars or a fence from vandalism. The girl is not well known and is located in a hidden alley and dead-end street. It is said that the statue was erected by a restaurant owner to attract more customers. There is no restaurant now but a Delirium Cafe which is not that suitable for a little girl.

Het Zinneke

The third peeing statue is Het Zinneke (or Zinneke Pis) which is the dog of the peeing siblings. The dog is the only statue of the 3 which is not a part of a fountain - the dog is located on the street. Erected in 1998, hit by a car in 2015, but was restored by the same sculptor.