2 October, 2023

This morning we are checking out of our hotel in Middelburg and driving to Ghent in Belgium. Since we have both been to the usual tourist places in Belgium such as Bruges we decided to just go to Ghent (I liked it a lot last time I was there), Brussels (to catch up with an old colleague of Lynn’s), Spa for a few days’ rest and Antwerp as a day trip to catch up with some friends of mine.

Check out should have been easy this morning. Walk the 10 minutes to the car park then bring the car back to the hotel in Middelburg, load up and drive the 55 minutes to Ghent. No, nothing is ever straight forward in Europe. We went to pay for the 4 days of parking but we find that the auto-pay system at the parking station doesn’t take debit or credit cards. No problem we thought. We have a Eu50 note to pay for our Eu40 parking bill. Nope… the machine doesn’t take Eu50 notes. WTF! Do the Europeans go out of their way to be obstructive? How hard is it to just accept all forms of payment? Lynn decides to run around town to look for someone who will break a EU50 note. Meanwhile I have a standup argument with a voice on the other end of the stupid machine. “Why don’t you take card payments?” I ask. “Because we don’t” is the response.

Why would anyone live in a country that can’t do basic efficient processes? I have come to the conclusion that Hitler didn’t lose the war. He just couldn’t stand the medieval thinking still going on to this day in the rest of Europe (and the UK for that matter – remember the Department of How Can We Make Things Harder to Do?).

Finally a helpful German couple turned up to pay for their parking and they had a wallet full of cash. They agreed that they have to carry a lot of cash in The Netherlands due to the inefficient or non-existent payment process here. Meanwhile Lynn has completely gone missing so I finally get the car out and drive the 20 minutes back to the hotel. It is 20 minutes because you can’t just drive there without taking the most inefficient route. They all ride bicycles because the road system is slower than walking. It turns out that Lynn has not been able to break her EU50 note in any of the shops so she finally walks nearly all the way back to the hotel before she finally has to buy something to break the note.

To make things worse, it seems that while the car was parked in the parking station someone backed in to the hire car and we now have a new dent in the bonnet and number plate. I always new that Dutch drivers were bad but that is just rude.

I now know the next location for “I’m a Celebrity, get me outta here”. Do it in a town in Europe!

We finally break out of the convoluted town roads and head to the border. On approach to Ghent it looks like the Belgians have learnt from the Dutch (it is Flanders after all). Our hotel is 50 metres inside a Low Emissions Zone (LEZ). You have to apply online for an exemption or cop a EU150 fine. Not a problem, I can understand not wanting vehicles with high emissions in the Old Town. The problem is that when you go online to apply for the entry you need vehicle details such as the date of first registration of the car, the EU emissions rating code, the car engine size, fuel type code, registration number, etc plus the registration address of the owner. Hey guys, what about tourists with hire cars? Bloody morons! So it seems that not only do the Europeans hate cars, they also hate tourists and rental companies. They must find things so easy when they are tourists in Australia.

I phone the help line but no one answers the phone so I email them outlining our situation including the fact that the hire car company hasn’t given us any registration documentation about the car at all. I also email a copy of our hire agreement, a photo of the registration plate and the contact details for the car hire company and tell the LEZ department to contact the hire car company for any further information. I’ve done my bit so over to them. Their automated response is that they will respond within 10 business days. We’ll be gone by then! Surprisingly, a short time later I get another email saying that the car has been registered and it can return to Ghent anytime without further registration between now and December 2027 when the registration will expire. Terrific!

Anyway, we finally get to our hotel and drag our suitcases up the stairs (at least this place has an elevator for part of the way). Too bad about anyone in a wheel chair. Our room is poorly lit, has head-banging ceiling trusses and a literal closet for a WC – the space from your knees and the door is less than in an aircraft loo! According to our room key cover we are in room 39 on the 3rd floor. Once we get to the third floor we find that there is no such room as 39. Back down to reception we find that “39” written on the folder is actually “32”. Just another way to piss people off because Europeans can’t write a 2 like the one that is on their keyboard!

At least we have a reasonable view of the Gravensteen Castle across the river. It would be a better view if for some reason hotel maintenance would clean the fly screen. I guess I shouldn’t complain. At least the room has a fly screen. It even has an almost working air conditioning split unit.

We quickly unpack and since it is forecast to rain tomorrow we decide to go on a canal boat tour. A boat tour is not a “must do” in Ghent (unlike Bruges) but we are booked on a walking tour tomorrow which Lynn plans to change to the following day for a better chance of fine weather.

After sleepy Middelburg, Ghent is bustling with tourists. Considering that it is Monday today and a Monday in October the heavy crowds seem out of place. However it is a sunny 25 Deg C this afternoon and by the end of this month it will be lucky to reach 10 Deg C. So maybe the locals are just trying to enjoy every last minute of warm weather.

The closest canal boat tour is just around the corner from the hotel. There is a tour at 3:15 pm which is about 25 minutes away. We purchase 2x Seniors’ tickets and go in search of a milkshake for me which we quickly find. The 2 waitresses in the cafe look like they are too young to know what they are doing. After a delay I get my milkshake to go – an eye-watering Eur8 (AUD12!!) for what I would consider to be the size of half a regular-sized milkshake. Beer is cheaper in Belgium.

Back at the tour departure point at 3:05 pm we see that the boat is already filling up so we jump on and snaffle the front 2 seats, right behind the skipper/tour guide’s seat.

We have a wait of 10 minutes in the sun – wow, is that sun packing a punch!

Initially we head in a SW direction along the Leie River between the Korenlei and Graslei roads.

This takes us past the Ancient Port of Ghent with its quay walls and its old guildhalls – boatmen, masons, grain measurers, fishmongers and hagbutters (soldiers armed with a hagbuts or arquebuses). Each guildhall has carved motifs on its facade as to the occupation it represents.

Cruising past these guildhalls we catch a glimpse of Ghent’s 3 famous towers: St Bavo Cathedral, the Belfry and St Nicholas Church.

As we make a U-turn we get to see some street art on one of the buildings’ wall on the corner of the Predikherenlei and Van Stopenberghestraat. After the cinematic release of “The Monuments Men”, graffiti artist Bart Smeets created a 100m² mural here.

We cruise back to our starting point then travel in the opposite, NE direction along the Leie River past various canal-side restaurants and previous multi-storey brick factories.

Today these canals are covered in low, narrow bridges, but apparently these were built in the early 1900s with the previous industrial, working bridges that allowed larger boats to enter the ancient port of Ghent having been demolished in favour of these.

Having executed another U-turn we return to our starting point then turn north, again on the Lieve River. Our cruise in this direction terminates at a monument called the Rabot. There used to be a rabot on the site of the building (a lock with a closure in the form of a single lifting door or sliding door), but the name Rabot has been transferred over the years to the towers defending this hydraulic structure.

During the Flemish Revolt against Maximilian of Austria, Habsburg troops came to besiege Ghent in 1488, but had to retreat after 40 days. At the place where they were stationed, the people of Ghent built two monumental towers on the existing rabot in the Lieve canal as a triumph.

In 1491 , the construction of the Rabot was completed: a fortified lock at the intersection of the Lieve with the city canal. De Lieve in turn provided the connection to the Zwin and further to the sea. After Maximilian’s victory in 1492, he ordered that the people of Ghent had to demolish the Rabot towers as punishment and use the stones to build a forced castle in the Prinsenhof. They refused and managed to renegotiate the sentence into a heavy fine.

Gravensteen (also known as the Castle of the Counts) is a medieval castle that dates back to the 12th century. This impressive fortress was once the residence of the Counts of Flanders and played an important role in the city’s history.

Today, visitors can explore the castle and its many rooms, including the Great Hall, where important meetings and banquets were held, and the dungeon, plus climb its battlements. The castle also houses a museum that showcases artifacts from its past, including weapons and armor.

50 minutes later we are back at our starting point.

Across the road from the Castle is a square bordered by restaurants but in the corner is a magnificent building which used to be the Fish Market, now the Tourist Information Centre.

Before we return to the hotel we take a stroll down Jan Breydelstraat that runs alongside the hotel where there are some promising eateries backed onto the canal.

Back at the hotel we check with the receptionist for restaurant recommendations and decide to visit Oudburg Street which has lots of ‘world’ eateries – Greek, Turkish, Asian – and is 4 minutes’ walk away.

We opt for the Sushi Palace and order a combo of sashimi, sushi and nigri but for 1 person (25 pieces) which we’ll share and wash down with a beer and a cold sake. It comes out on a boat. Good call for the single serving – anything larger would have been way too much.

3 October, 2023

As predicted it is cold and bucketing down with rain when we wake this morning. Just as well Lynn moved our city walking tour to tomorrow.

We need a catch up day anyway so the plan is to sort out some issues with HSBC Bank (they seem to have lost Lynn’s “Global View” of all our accounts for Australia, UK and America). It is not a major issue while we are in Europe but we need to move some GBP from Lynn’s UK account to our Australian Everyday Global GBP account before we head back to the UK in November. We also need to do our weekly laundry at the laundromat near last night’s sushi restaurant.

After a few frustrating hours HSBC UK can’t solve the issue so they promise to sort it out within the next 15 business days. Another case of poor user acceptance testing when they did their last system update I suspect.

After all things done and sorted we head out to dinner at a recommended Italian restaurant. The food is excellent and we consume a half litre of house red. We needed that after the frustrating day dealing with banks.

Back at the hotel it seems that the Castle is lit up tonight. Lynn commented last night that the Castle wasn’t illuminated. Apparently Ghent is going to participate in ‘The Night of Darkness’ on 14 October when all monumental lighting will be extinguished. Perhaps last night was a trial run??

4 October, 2023

A cool but sunny morning today. Perfect weather for a 2-hour walking tour.

We’re at the meeting place at 10:15 am and join 40 other people. The group splits into 2 and we have Leisa, a Ghent-born history teacher, as our guide.

When Lynn booked the tour several months ago we weren’t planning on doing the canal boat tour. So, for the first half of today’s tour we are given information we’ve heard before on the boat tour 2 days ago.

For example, the tower of St Michael’s Church was supposed to have been the 4th tower in Ghent. Unfortunately, the Brewers Guildhall which was responsible for its construction was unable to finish it so just ‘topped’ it off.

Also, the Great Butchers’ Hall was originally a covered market. This hall, which dates back to the 15th century, was the central place where meat was inspected and traded. This was partly because selling meat door-to-door was forbidden in the Middle Ages.

Most of the town centre that we see today has been reconstructed. Only a few buildings are original medieval, such as this row of shops in Kraanlei Street, one of which is a traditional sweet shop owned by a 5th generation confectioner.

On Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market) our guide introduces us to ths Dulle Griet pub which boasts 500 different types of Belgian beer including 12 rare Trappist beers, 6 of which are Belgian – as advertised on the front window.

Also advertised is what Australians know as a ‘yard glass’. Here in Belgium this is a koetsiersglas aka “Coachmen’s Glass.” Legend has it that tavern owner Pauwel Kwak designed the unique shape in the 1790s when Napoleonic Code took hold in Belgium. One stipulation of the stringent new legal code was that coachmen were no longer allowed to drink with their riders. This tactic focused on drawing a clear line between the wealthy and working classes. And it meant left of potential customers had to wait outside Pauwel’s bar.

Like any enterprising entrepreneur, he figured out a loophole: coachmen couldn’t come in, but beer could come out to them! He designed a wooden cupholder of sorts to hold a glass. The coachmen could attach this cupholder to their coach. Then, Kwak created a glass that would stay in the cupholder, or in the hand of the coachman on even the bumpiest ride.

The tricky part was that the glass had to be narrow enough for a coachmen to wrap their hand around it even with thick gloves. This left a long slender neck of a glass with most of the beer contained in a bottom bulb to prevent sloshing in a bumpy coach. The already odd looking contraption has a massive lip at the top to make drinking (while driving, yikes!) easy and to contain spills. The 18th century version of a sippy cup!

Nearby is Graffiti Street. People sometimes say you can recognise a vibrant city by its street art. Ghent is a hip and free-thinking cultural city where everyone is welcome and free to do their thing. Werregarenstraatje in Ghent is a public canvas for young street artists.

In Graffiti Street, street artists create striking spray-can art to their heart’s content. This means that Graffiti Street never looks the same from one week to the next, or even one day to the next.

In our opinion, the section of Graffiti Street that overlooks the beautiful and peaceful grounds of a museum is far preferable to the corridor’s boisterous vandalism that passes as ‘art’.

Leaving Graffiti Street we come upon the Stadhuis which has 2 faces to the building: one Gothic , the other Renaissance. This schizophrenic building consists of two parts and it shows a fascinating sight in political Ghent. The facade on the Hoogpoort side shows you the flamboyant late Gothic style of the early 16th century. This style contrasts sharply with the Renaissance style of the facade on the Botermarkt. In this younger wing (1559 -1618) you see Doric, Ionic and Corinthian three-quarter columns and pilasters, inspired by the Italian palazzi.

The Ghent Belfry is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1402, the city privileges were kept in a trunk in the secretory of the Belfry. The dragon, which has stood on the tower since 1377, not only kept an eye on the city, but was also the symbolic treasure keeper of the Belfry. The Belfry also proudly carried the storm bell, the ‘Great Triumphant’.

Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, also known as Sint-Baafs Cathedral, is the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Ghent. It contains the well-known Ghent Altarpiece, originally in the Joost Vijd Chapel. It is formally known as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb after its lower centre panel by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. This work is considered Van Eyck’s masterpiece and one of the most important works of the early Northern Renaissance, as well as one of the greatest artistic masterpieces of Belgium.

Part of the painting, the lowermost left panel known as The Just Judges, was stolen in 1934 and has not been recovered. It has since been replaced with a facsimile by Jef Van der Veken.

St. Nicholas Church is one of the oldest and most prominent landmarks in Ghent. Begun in the early 13th century as a replacement for an earlier Romanesque church, construction continued through the rest of the century in the local Scheldt Gothic style (named after the nearby river). Typical of this style is the use of blue-gray stone from the Tournai area, the single large tower above the crossing, and the slender turrets at the building’s corners.

Built in the old trade center of Ghent next to the bustling Korenmarkt (Wheat Market), St. Nicholas Church was popular with the guilds whose members carried out their business nearby. The guilds had their own chapels which were added to the sides of the church in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The central tower, which was funded in part by the city, served as an observation post and carried the town bells until the neighboring belfry of Ghent was built. These two towers, along with the Saint Bavo Cathedral, still define the famous medieval skyline of the city center.

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe. His reputation evolved among the pious, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus (“Saint Nick”) through Sinterklaas.

Here in Ghent the story goes that he became the patron saint of children after he heard that a butcher had murdered 3 starving waifs, put their bodies in a barrel to be sold as ‘high quality meat’ to wealthy patrons. When St Nicholas heard this, he visited the butcher and after blessing the barrel the children came alive and were intact – hence he became the protector of children. This depiction is above a door of the Ghent cathedral which has a barrel with a child in it at the lower LHS of the statue.

One of the treasures of the church is its organ, produced by the famous French organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

At the end of the tour we cut through the Friday Market Square where there is a statue of Jacob van Artevelde (c. 1290 – 1345), also known as The Wise Man and the Brewer of Ghent, a Flemish statesman and political leader.

Since we’ve arrived in Ghent I keep saying to Lynn that I remember a large fountain. Do you think I can find it?

Then, when we get back to the hotel I check the photos of my visit to Ghent in May 2005. Guess what, it isn’t a fountain at all, it’s this statue!

We’re going to try the cafe/bar, “Et Alors”, just around the corner for dinner tonight to sample their savoury and sweet crepes. Question is: will we be eating crepes or craps?

As it turns out, the crepes are delicious!

5 October, 2023

This morning is overcast and 15 Deg C as we depart Ghent at 10:55 am. After a short stop to top up the fuel tank we take the E40 SW to Brussels.

As we hit the ‘burbs we soon come to the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart church then disappear into several tunnels that take us under the city and out the other side to our hotel which overlooks Parc du Cinquantenaire.

Although the Best Western website said that street parking was available at Eur25 per day, it turns out it costs more like Eur25 for 12 hours so we take the car to a nearby shopping mall that has 24-hour, open air public parking onsite, call into a nearby Aldi then check in and unpack our bags.

Buggar! After I unpack I realise that I’ve lost my brown, suede flat cap between Ghent and here. Chances are it fell off the sofa in our hotel room and because there wasn’t any lighting in that half of the room, it got missed!

As it’s now sunny we decide to locate the restaurant where we’ll be meeting up with Michiel, a former colleague of Lynn’s, tomorrow for lunch, then take a wander through the adjacent park which our hotel room overlooks.

The Cinquantenaire Arcade is a memorial arcade in the centre of the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels. The centrepiece is a monumental triple arch known as the Cinquantenaire Arch. It is topped by a bronze quadriga sculptural group with a female charioteer, representing the Province of Brabant personified raising the national flag.

The Cinquantenaire Arcade was part of a project commissioned by the Belgian Government under the patronage of King Leopold II for the 1880 National Exhibition, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Belgian Revolution. In 1880, only the bases of the memorial arch’s columns were completed, and during the exhibition, the rest of the arch was constructed from wooden panels. In the following years, the monument’s completion was the topic of a continuous battle between Leopold II and the Belgian Government, which did not want to spend the money required to complete it.

The original single arch of the 1880 exhibition was conceived by the architect Gédéon Bordiau, but upon his death in 1904, the arch’s design was revised by the French architect Charles Girault, chosen by Leopold II. Girault designed a triple arch, but preserved Bordiau’s idea of the quadriga. The foundation of the new arch was laid down on 4 January 1905, replacing Bordiau’s temporary arch. The basic construction was completed with private funding in May of the same year and the arcade was inaugurated by Leopold II on 27 September 1905, just in time for the 75th anniversary of Belgian Independence.

We walk under the Arch to the commencement of the parkland on the city side. Then retrace our steps along the opposite side passing the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History.

Created on the occasion of the 1910 Universal Exhibition, the Museum of the Army and Military History was established in the Cinquantenaire in 1923. The museum not only displays arms, armour, uniforms, planes and tanks, but also reveals genuine works of art such as paintings, statues and miniatures.

The history of soldiering around the world and technical developments are related from medieval armour up to modern-day camouflage gear, via the two World Wars.

By now it’s around 5.30 pm so we decide to return to Avenue des Celtes opposite the Merode metro station for some Belge fare at the Carpe Diem restaurant then call it a night.

6 October, 2023

Today we are meeting up with Michiel, a former colleague of Lynn’s from her ARMA Europe days. Michiel used to be ARMA’s European representative and organised several annual conferences in Brussels. The last time they met was at a strategy meeting that Lynn arranged to be held at the Credit Suisse offices in London in January 2010.

After an enjoyable lunch with Michiel we walk to the park opposite the hotel to Brussels’s Auto World – formerly the Museum of Vintage Cars. Today it hosts vintage and modern cars and motor bikes.

For the next couple of weeks Bugatti is on special display with models from its racing days in the early 1900s to the one-of-one 2021 La Voiture Noire model.

Centre stage are the 2006 Veyron and 2018 Chiron, plus the 2020 Divo and Centodieci and the 2021 La Voiture Noire. Apparently the COVID years had no impact on design and production – nor price for the one-off La Voiture Noire – $18.7m!

Since we had lunch today we are not up to a full dinner so we head down to Cape Diem Restaurant and indulge in Belgium waffles and ice cream with chocolate sauce. Let’s call it last night’s dessert and we won’t feel so bad. Tomorrow we are off to Spa, Belgium for what is supposed to be a three day rest. Reviews of the Radisson Blu are a bit concerning especially since they seem to have come in after we booked the hotel some 6 months ago.