

Of all the seven Peter Pan statues, the one in Brussels has the most memorable story for my family -- and the history of the statue itself is pretty dramatic, as well!
In 2011 we took a family trip to Europe. We wanted to visit Germany and France, and we specifically planned our route between the two to give us an overnight in Brussels, just so I could visit my fourth Peter Pan statue. We arrived in the city, found Egmont Park where the statue is located, took a bunch of pictures, started to walk back to our hotel, and got caught in a rainstorm. Wet and hungry, we stopped into a Quick Burger for something to eat. While we ate, my husband laid our camera bag on the floor by his feet. When we got ready to leave, the camera bag was gone.
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Not only had we lost our quite nice Canon camera, a small video camera, and a couple of pairs of sunglasses -- the thief had, in stealing our camera, also stolen our pictures of the Peter Pan statue! We were upset about the loss of the camera, of course, but I was not leaving Belgium without a picture of Peter Pan! The next morning, before catching our train to Amiens, we dashed across Brussels again for another trip to the park, where we snapped a couple of phone pics of me with Peter Pan.
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The Brussels statue was the second Peter Pan statue to be cast from Frampton's original mold, and was presented in 1924 from England to Belgium as a symbol of the friendship between the two countries during the First World War. During the Second World War, the statue was apparently damaged and some websites claim that bullet holes can still be seen in it. I did not see bullet holes on either of my visits, but this is because when I was there in 2011, the statue had only been returned to its spot about a year earlier after being removed for restoration. During the restoration, Peter's pipe was restored and the bullet holes removed. You can read about the Brussels statue and its refurbishment in this article.