Having taken the Eurostar from London to Brussels - a little disappointed that there was no fanfare when we entered the Channel Tunnel, though the time did suddenly change by an hour on the clock in the carriage - I hopped on the train to Ghent, where I'd rented an apartment for 5 nights.
First impressions at Ghent train station were not fantastic; I came down from the platform into the middle of what appeared to be a building site (looks like the station is undergoing some renovation work), and it took some searching to find the actual station and even more searching to find the tram stop into the centre of town (Tram 1). But once I arrived in the centre of Ghent I could see it was a beautiful city, with fantastic Medieval buildings,
This was the apartment I'd rented out; it was beautifully done inside and looked out on one of the canals. Everything was very minimalistic - none of the cupboards had any handles, you had to push them to get them to open. In fact it was a bit too minimalistic - it took me a while to track down the fridge, then I couldn't find any cutlery! A text to the owner eventually established that they were hidden away in a drawer within a cupboard. D'oh!
I was delighted to find that, for some reason, BBC1 was one of the channels on the television, so I could watch the Wednesday night episode of The Apprentice and not have to avoid seeing who got fired for a week. “Allo, Allo” seemed to be on permanently on one of the other channels.
The city has a series of beautiful canals; this one was right beside the apartment where I was staying.
A monument to the Van Eyck brothers, painters of the famous Adoration of the Mystic Lamb alterpiece, which is in the cathedral behind. It’s amazing the alterpiece still exists; in the 1930s one of the panels was mysteriously stolen and never recovered, and in Second World War the Nazis stole it and hid it in a salt mine near Salzburg (its recovery was told in the film The Monuments Men).
Inside the cathedral, Saint Baafskathedraal. The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb was in a little side chapel (no photographs allowed, unfortunately). There was an impressive painting by Rubens in a chapel on the left.
Medieval paintings in the crypt of the cathedral. Otherwise the crypt seemed to be filled with a rather random collection of ecclesiastical junk (some great paintings, though).
As dusk fell and lights came on in the buildings I could really see how beautiful Ghent is, especially with the reflections in the canals.
This is looking across at the Graslei, a series of wonderful Medieval guild houses. In the Middle Ages Ghent (and Bruges) were very wealthy centres of the cloth trade.
This cute little building was built in 1698 to house customs officers.
This fine series of buildings is the Korenlei, across the water from the Graslei.
A little cafe in the centre of Ghent served this delicious Flemish beef stew with frites. Even the mayonnaise was fantastic. And the dark beer was great, too.
On my second day I took the train to the beautifully preserved Medieval city of Bruges, only 20 minutes away from Ghent. This was on the way into the centre of the town.
Inside the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges. The church was a centre of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, as it held (and still does) a crystal phial supposedly containing Christ’s blood. When I visited the phial was on display and you could go up and have a look at it, watched closely by a rather stern-looking priest. I went up but it was a bit hard to make out what was in the phial, just a few red specks. I blessed myself anyway, just to be on the safe side, and to keep the priest happy.
There's a Precious Blood society you can join! Vampires not welcome, presumably.
The front of the Basilica of the Holy Blood.
A detail from The Last Judgement by Hieronymus Bosch, in the Groeninge Museum - crazy name, crazy guy. I spent ages looking at this, there was so much going on! Hieronymus clearly had a fantastic imagination.
I remember this painting (Death and the Miser, by Jan Provoost) from “In Bruges”. I thought it was fantastic the way it had been done as two separate paintings (though when I looked it up later I discovered it was originally a triptych and the centre panel has been lost. When the triptych was closed it looked like this).
A beautiful old building beside one of the Bruges canals. The town has some wonderful architecture. Even modern buildings have been constructed in a harmonious style with the older ones.
The very cute (and much-photographed) St. Bonifaciusburg bridge; it may look medieval but it was only built in 1910.
The Belgians seem to have a thing for spooky-looking dolls dressed in what I presume are Christening dresses ; I saw several of these on my travels. Lace is a traditional product found in shops in Bruges and Ghent.
Lots of swans down at The Minnewater (Lake of Love). I couldn’t help thinking of In Bruges again:
“How can f**king swans not f**king be somebody’s f**king thing, eh? How can that be?"
"Yes, there's swans..."
Houses in the Begijnhof, originally a Medieval community setup to home widows and unmarried women. Even today the houses are occupied by women (including nuns).
One of the buildings in the Begijnhof.
A nice way to get around Bruges. Even in November the town was full of tourists, much more so than Ghent, which felt more like an ordinary but beautiful city.
I was surprised how many religious statues I saw in Bruges and other Belgian cities; Belgium is a very Catholic country (the breakdown of Christian religions is something like 99% Catholic, 1% Protestant).
Colourful buildings in the centre of Bruges; Christmas decorations were starting to go up.
Bruges by night. Like Ghent, when dusk fell and the lights came on the town took on another ethereal kind of beauty.
St. Bonifaciusburg bridge again, by night. With slightly fewer tourists taking selfies, thankfully.
Back in Ghent the following day I enjoyed potteriing around the atmospheric streets. I loved the reflections of the buildings in the canals.
Ornately decorated houses in the Kraanlei area of Ghent. The house on the left has panels illustrating various acts of mercy (visiting the sick, burying the dead, and so on). The house on the right has panels illustrating the five senses.
In the window of an antiques shop. These shops seemed to have a lot of religious items.
This was in a very eclectic antiques shop, which seemed to sell a bit of everything. Not quite sure what you would do with this.
Lovely Autumnal light in the afternoon, walking by one of the canals.
As someone said, bicycles always seem to be left in the most photogenic locations.
All ages take to their bicycles in Ghent.
The brooding castle in the centre of Ghent, Het Gravensteen; even the name sounded sinister.
More reflections....
And more!
The Groot Vleeshuis, a market used in the Middle Ages to sell meat, and now a delicatessen. Those are real joints hanging from the ceiling.
The Ghent version of Big Ben.
This seemed to be another Belgian thing; cushions with vaguely unsettling pictures of animals.
On Saturday I took the train to Ypres, to see the Menin Gate, the war memorial to British and Commonwealth soldiers killed here during the First World War (the Ypres salient was the scene of three major battles during the war, including Passchendaele).
This shop was near the memorial. Ypres was completely destroyed in the First World War, with hardly a building standing at the end. Everything there today had to be rebuilt.
Shot at dawn; someone had left this at the Menin Gate. Herbert Burden was shot for desertion in July 1915, at the age of 17, the youngest soldier to be executed by the British Army. In 2006 he was given a posthumous pardon by the British government.
A road runs right though the Menin Gate.
The peaceful scene today is a sharp contrast to how the town would have looked 100 years ago. Photographs from the time show complete and utter devastation.
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