When we were on the tour from Delft, we had stopped at a cheese place and we bought a modest piece of cheese. They asked if we wanted it vacuum sealed to take home, we said no, we will eat it here.
We ate the last piece of cheese today! Now, we are thinking why didn’t we also get some vacuum sealed to take home, ugh, what we were thinking.
So yummy.
Our last day bike riding. 43km to Bruge
Rainy, windy day, I stayed on the boat and John biked 50km to Ghent.
Ghent surprised me. It is a small, compact city full of the most wonderful places to explore. It was our landing place for the day and because I stayed on the boat, we arrived at 1:15 with my other ship mates who also decided to stay onboard.
Judy, Jim, Maureen and Tom are lovely people who we explored the city together this afternoon. We originally thought we would bike downtown to meet the others and changed with the rain and the fact we don’t really know where we are going. Taxi really was the better option.
Our first stop was the castle. Home of Count Philip and Elizabeth. The audio tour was so hilarious and a must if you visit the castle. The audio tour takes you through Philip’s relationship with Elizabeth, they met when she was 13 and he was 14. Never had children, problematic for lordships. Talked about the series of executions ordered by Philip including the execution of Elizabeth who had taken a lover after 40 years of marriage. Philip, it seems, engaged in torture in the castles torture chambers as well and dictating punishments such as the usual tropes of taking off a hand for stealing. Not a nice guy. Also rather religious for convenience and died on the route to performing a crusade that was to save his soul.
Ghent has multiple huge churches. It isn’t a big city to have five enormous churches in the core, we popped into Saint Bravo’s Cathedral. So high ceilings, probably 6-7 stories tall, it is so long as well. The stained glass is traditional except for one modern, beautiful window that had a beautiful shimmer in the daylight.
Ended our visit with a little boat tour through the city.
Okay, 43 kilometre ride today, super bright and beautiful.
We are biking toward Sint Amand in the Flanders Region. Beautiful area with a few castles and farm land.
The day after our Antwerp arrival, we are off again to tour Antwerp and the neighbouring area.
We found it unusual that the Boat and Bike tour would send us off on our own the day we arrived and then the next day give us a tour. But as it is.
We first saw a warehouse building. The boats would bring goods to the building and then using a pully system, would hoist up to the various windows for storage. The place is now a fancy hotel, restaurant place. Still very cool.
We were to go to the cathedral but so much fussing about, we abandoned the group and went to see if the musical instrument museum was open, nope. The printing museum, nope! Okay, let’s find suntan lotion and chocolate. I had realized that I had forgotten my bike chocolate, which in my family, is a major faux pas.
Antwerp was heavily bombed in the early days of the Second World War. Strategically, it was important for the German’s because of the ports and as a defensive move they needed to occupy in order to weaken the allies.
You see this in the architecture of the city. The ports are new and throughout the city is a mix between old and new architecture.
We visited Antwerp thhe our barge was docked, I may have exited a bit too excitedly as the crew did ask were I was going in such a hurry. Places, I came to see places. Unfortunately, we were too late to visit the museums. So we went to the highlights, the Grand Place and the Central Station. Mostly seeing what was around the next corner.
We were really surprised as well how many people were out and about, shopping or eating in various tourist sites. Yikes, so many people who want to shop at H&M or Zara.
Our wanderings and trama of seeing so much tourist food in Antwerp brought us a delight, Brewers’ Kitchen. Farm to Table on the chalk board outside brought us in.
Run by Guy, One Guy cooking. One Guy is also maître de, server, cleaner, host. Guy was alone in cooking and serving and a delight in his passion about beer and food.
His menus start with the beer and each dish is born out of the flavours that will be accentuated in combination with the locally produced farm food.
Every dish was served with an accompanying beer and even though John didn’t finish each one, he tried each one with the accompanying dish. We both loved the experience, ambiance and mostly loved Guy.
Coming out of Bergen op Zoom, we biked to a now park and very beautiful fortification called Fort De Roovere. It was originally conceived as part of the defences of the 80 year war against the Spanish. And then used again in the 1700’s by the French occupiers, rather unsuccessfully as it didn’t hold up and the French lost the defence. And used in the Napoleonic Wars.
Fort De Roovere is a series of star like trenches that would fill with water. How well this works is questionable.
Today, Fort De Roovere is a beautiful park, with a place to climb up and the Moses Bridge where the water on either side of you is up to your middle.
So many of these men were in their late teens and early twenties and reading their headstones the surge of gratitude overcomes you, without their sacrifice, I wouldn’t enjoy the life I have today. I wouldn’t be here reading their headstones.
Our tour ended up in Bergen-op-Zoom War Cemetery as a stop on our bike ride. Extremely thoughtful for the large group of Canadians. The gravestones are from a battle in 1944 and the men died mostly between October and December. It was the battle of Walcheren. Walcheren is an island that is an entrance to a strategic port occupied and fortified by the Germans at the early part of the war.
The island was secured November 4 1944.
The world around me