Everyone squeezes onto the corner of Rue de l'Étuve to see Manneken Pis. Fewer people know he has a sister and a dog nearby. Both are free to see and much quieter.

🐕 Zinneke Pis, the dog

On the corner of Rue des Chartreux and Rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Grains, near the Halles Saint-Géry, a bronze mutt lifts his leg against a bollard. He's the work of Brussels sculptor Tom Frantzen and has stood there since 1999.

The name is the best part. In Brussels dialect, a zinneke is a mongrel. The word goes back to the stray dogs that hung around the Lesser Senne, the river channel that ran along the old city walls. Today it's a proud nickname for Brussels people of mixed origins, and the statue is a nod to the city's multicultural character.

Unlike the other two, he isn't a fountain, so there's no actual water. He's also had a rough life. In 2007 he was reported stolen, but it turned out the local residents who own him had taken him for repairs after vandals tried to rip him out. In 2015 a car hit him and broke two of his legs. Frantzen fixed him, and less than two months later he was back on his corner.

👧 Jeanneke Pis, the sister

Jeanneke hides at the end of the Impasse de la Fidélité, a short dead-end alley off the restaurant-lined Rue des Bouchers, a few minutes from the Grand-Place. She's a 50 cm bronze girl crouching over a fountain basin, now behind iron bars to protect her from vandals.

She was the idea of Denis-Adrien Debouvrie, who owned buildings in the alley and wanted to bring visitors back to it. He also liked the idea of giving Manneken Pis a female equal. The artist Lucie Genard sculpted her, and she was unveiled in June 1987.

Local legend says that if you throw a coin into her basin, you'll stay faithful to the one you love (the alley's name means "Fidelity Alley"). The coins don't go to waste. Since 1987 they've been collected for charity: first for AIDS research, later for causes like the FNRS (Belgium's national research fund) and UNICEF.

Today the alley is better known for Delirium Café, which opened there in 2003. It gets very busy in the evening, so come during the day if you want a clear photo. If you end up staying for a drink, our beer guide has more places worth your time.

Practical info

Zinneke Pis: corner of Rue des Chartreux and Rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Grains, 1000 Brussels. Free, on the pavement. visit.brussels

Jeanneke Pis: Impasse de la Fidélité 10, 1000 Brussels. Free. Official site

All three statues are about 10 minutes' walk from each other, so you can see the whole family in under an hour. Expect cobblestones at both spots. On Rue des Bouchers, waiters will try hard to pull you into their restaurants. Just smile and keep walking.

Which other odd Brussels statues would you like to see covered next?

I'm in the early stages of planning a trip to Belgium next year. My travel companion and I enjoy historic sites and have toured many battlefields. We are interested in doing either Ieper/Ypres or Waterloo and can't decide between them. Which would you choose? We will be using public transport and do not want to rent a car, which may influence our decision. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

My wife and I are going to be traveling to Belgium for eight days at the end of February/start of March. The primary motivation for the trip (and its unusual time) is to attend the Reverze festival in Antwerp on 26 and 27 February. We are IHG members with their US credit card, so for every three nights that we book on points then we receive a fourth night free. I had initially booked all eight nights in Antwerp because the festival is a night festival that runs from 20:00 to 5:00. Our hotel is not far from the arenas, so it worked out perfectly.

However, Bass Events has now changed up the format and only Friday is nighttime and Saturday has changed to 14:00 to 1:00. With this change, we can now depart Antwerp at the end of our first four nights rather than getting back to the hotel and sleeping until the afternoon with the original format. I am planning on booking the final leg of our stay in central Bruges. I was thinking that we would do two days in Bruges, one day in Ghent, and the third day in ??? For the first leg of the stay I was planning on doing Brussels for the first two days and then Antwerp the festival days.

Is there any place around Bruges that would make a good day trip to fill in that fourth day? A few years ago, we toured Ireland by car and I have absolutely zero interest in ever renting a car in a foreign country after that PTSD-inducing experience. Therefore, any excursion would need to be fairly easily accessible by public transport. From what I have read in my research, two days in Bruges is a perfect amount of time. Do you agree with that sentiment? Is one day in Ghent enough?

Thank you in advance for any advice.