Beernem and Bruges mini break Day 2: A day in Ghent

NO TARDIS Tuesday today as I wimped out of what I was going to wear in favour of slouchy jumper and cords.

We woke up on our second morning in Ghent. I am pleased to say I slept really well.

We ate another of Veronique's delicious breakfasts and then got ready to leave.  CBC drove me to Ghent and dropped me off on some random road just off the main road.  I had no idea where I was but at least I had a phone!  He continued onto his destination of Oudenhaarde where he was going to cycle from.

I had no particular idea what I was heading towards so, for want of a place to head for, I decided to search for Ghent's branch of Think Twice, vintage shop beloved of Ann!  To my delight, I discovered they had three stores.

I located one and walked towards it, getting a bit confused.  I have a terrible sense of direction and often struggle with this!

I popped into an Oxfam (household) store I saw on the way and picked up a small pack of fairtrade organic teabags plus a Shampoo bar as the tea in our room was only Lemon and Ginger and I really wanted some English Breakfast tea.

After this, I headed for my first T2 store on Nederkouter.

I forgot to mention that I had visited the T2 in Bruges the previous day and not found anything I liked.  I was really happy to realise that T2 were having the start of their sale days.  These always seem to fall when I am in Belgium.  Today was 30% off day, the first day of the sale.   

I have only ever been in there on the final days of the sale or the first day of a new collection so it was interesting to see the selection.  I was excited to see a whole rack of sheepskin and fluffy coats- I have been longing for a longer length real sheepskin coat for quite a while. I immediately found this brown one with a mongolian sheepskin collar and a shearling lining and picked it up as well as a black suede jacket  with a furry collar but no lining.

As I perused the store, I found one or two other items to try on.  There was a good selection.

The black coat was too big but the brown one fit perfectly. It was 75 euros so with 30% discount it was £52.50.  I walked round the store holding it but I wasn't 100% sure whether I should spend that much money on it.  I ended up picking up this black long length embroidered waistcoat that was 4,50 Euros with the discount.

After this, I headed to the next store on Brabrantdam.  This was quite a nice walk to take as I crossed various rivers and it was really pleasant to view the river from various quarters.

In this store, I tried a few items on including this checked dress, various black velvet jackets and a green cardigan but did not find anything I wanted to buy or that worked.

Next, I headed to the final store Ajunilei. This store was really big and had two floors.  I found a few things to try on in here including a really soft brown hooded coat and a black velvet jacket (I had identified this as an item I wanted for winter concerts to wear over a black dress or top and trousers/skirt.  I ummed and ahed over the items and decided to buy the black velvet jacket but was debating whether I really needed a black velvet skirt- in some ways, I wanted one that was longer although this one fit perfectly. The jacket was 12 Euros before discount as was the skirt.  I decided to leave the skirt.

At this point, I decided I should really get some lunch and plumped for Asian food. After only 1 whole day in Bruges, I was already in need of some spicy flavours!  I ended up on the same street as the original T2 and went to Miss Ramen, having their special Ramen just before closing time. It was delicious and the perfect size! Some Ramens are too big but this was just right with lots of bits and pieces in it.

Since I was close to that T2, I went to have another look at the brown jacket.  I looked at the labels and saw it was made of 100% pig skin leather but it seemed to suggest that the lining was synthetic.  Much as I liked it, this made my decision easier- I decided I didn't want to compromise on the lining and wanted a real shearling lining.  I was to regret that decision later.  Both Ann and Inez (Ann's friend who I follow on Insta) both said they would have bought it and I did keep thinking about it AND the black velvet skirt!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kezzie (@kezziesquirrel)

class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

At this point, I decided to walk over to the Old historic part of Ghent.  I followed my phone map and ended having an interesting walk to reach it, passing over the rivers again.

I decided to head for the covered market as I wasn't sure what I was heading for otherwise.

Just before I got there, I came past the imposing St Nicholas church on Korenmarkt (hmmm, does this mean covered market?). This church, constructed from Bluestone from Tournai, is considered one of the best examples of the  Scheldt Gothic style. It was established in the 13th century and would have been worshipped at my artisans and merchants.  It has a notable feature in the form of a Lantern tower which is located where the nave and the transepts cross, rather than at the entrance.  Inside you can see a variety of artworks from the numerous art guilds that had their own chapels/altars there.  

The main altar has a painting by Nicolas De Liemaecker. He was a painter from the 17th century who received positive acclaim from Rubens and tells the story of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra.

The organ has been recently restored.

Stained glass windows are by Capronnier and Herman Blondeel- a mix of older and more modern.

It was a welcome  calm space.

You may just see the rainbow colours of the modern stained glass and below, the aforementioned painting.

Some of the more historc stained glass.

I was interested to look at the organ.  It dates from 1856 and it is a Romantic era organ which was constructed by Aristide Cavaille-Coll.  The organ itself has been recently restored, as has the nave, and one can see the organ on its loft again to the western portal.

I decided to sit for a while in the church. For rest and a pray. 

At this moment, I noticed a man in the chancel area near the altar.  Was the verger?

In an extremely haphazard way, I saw him wielding this rather long pole with a dangling part which he was, rather unsuccessfully, attempting to light these extremely high candles.  The flames started licking down the fabric/string/whatever was hanging down and he had to bring it back to him and urgently blow it out and relight it several times before he was able to successfully light them. Surely, there is a better way to light these monumental candles?

I then watched with befuddlement as he then appear to clamber up onto the altar to light those candles.  Somehow, I did wonder if he was just a random person giving it a go!

At this point, I saw another man, the organist, climbing the spiral staircase to the organ loft and begin practising.  He pedestrianly plodded his way through some sort of fast Processional (which he needed to practice, definitely!)

At this point, I reluctantly, after several minutes of listening to the organ, decided to continue onwards.

I took a brief look in the Campanile tower but decided not to climb it as my bags were feeling rather unwieldy and heavy.

I decided to go into St Bavo's Cathedral.  At the door was a lady with a bowl so I gave her some change and went in.

Another beautiful place, it's the oldest parish church in Ghent.  Originally, it was a 10th century church as well as a 12th century Romanesque church. However, later on, during the middle ages, because Ghent was so powerful, it had the wealth to build much more opulent and vaster churches. o  The church was converted, in the 15th-16th century into a cathedral. The Romanesque structure was replaced with a Gothich church of greater proportions.

There are lots of  beautiful examples of art.

A Baroque high altar caarved from white, black and red flamed marble.

A Rococo pulpit and a Rubens as well as The Adoration of the  Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers.

I loved this particular stained glass window.

As I left, the golden hour was lighting the buildings  gloriously.

I decided I would like to have a hot chocolate or a cup of tea. I was waiting for CBC's call to say he was ready to meet me but wasn't sure how long he would be.

After a wander, trying to find somewhere quiet for a cup of tea, I ended up in a Wasbar. This is a restaurant which is also a laundry- they have washing machines perhaps so students can wait for their washing whilst enjoying a drink?!

I opted for a tea and found the lovely, nearly empty second floor table to sit and read my rather large and heavy book, The Shadow of the Wind. I had carried it around all day so I really wanted to make sure I read some!

After I'd been there for a while, CBC called to say he was finished and back to the car and perhaps would be with me within half an hour. To avoid him falling foul of the LEZ zone, I decided try and make my way back to where he had dropped me off.  Trouble was, with my ineffable sense of direction, I had NO idea where that was!

I set off, trying to plot a trail.  At one point, I seemed to pass a music college as I could hear a whole load of clarinets playing together and then 2 more clarinets playing something completely different from a nearby space/room.

CBC and I spent a tedious 25 minutes trying to find each other as 'Live Location' was not playing ball on maps so we couldn't pin each other.

Finally, we found each other and drove back to Het Soatewater.

I was very excited as we were to have a Tapas platter prepared by Veronique.

I could not believe the size of it.

Breads, crackers, cheeses, meats, fruits, nuts, jams and chutneys were in abundance:

CBC was exhausted by his epic cycle so only ate a bit before he conked out asleep on the bed. 

I managed to get him to have a shower later. It was a quiet evening.

xx

 

Beernem and Bruge mini break- Day 1

After the funeral refreshments, we suddenly realised it was quite late and we had to get to Dover to get our DFDS ferry to Calais.  It was a bit of a close thing but we managed to get there with 50minutes to spare before the ferry departed at 19.35.  You're supposed to be there 60mins before your departure time but we were around 45-50minutes!

It was pleasant getting a ferry and we found a big sofa and sat with a cup of tea and arrived in Calais around 21.55!  We then had a very easy drive from Calais to Beernem in Belgium although we had to stop for Petrol- it was pretty much a straight drive along the E40 motorway!  We were feeling very guilty about our host, Veronique at  Het Soetewater having to stay up for us.  We finally arrived around 23.25!  She showed us to our room (with much grovelling from me!) which was gorgeous! It is called the Caramel room. You may recognise the name of this B&B as it is where my lovely blog friend Ann (Polyester Princess) stays when she travels to Bruges!  We'd spent ages looking at accommodation (last minute!) in Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp and were finding it very expensive and not as lovely as you'd expect for the cost and then I SUDDENLY thought of this place, searched Ann's blog and discovered to my delight, that they had availability for 3 nights.  We got a package deal which included breakfast, a picnic for two, bike hire and 3nights which seemed great as everything else we looked at was more expensive with accommodation only.

We went to sleep. Annoyingly, I didn't sleep amazingly, such is the curse of me and new/strange beds! It had nothing to do with the sumptuous room.

Photo from Het Soatewater website.

The next morning, we got up around 8.55am and were ready for breakfast quite late.

We entered into Veronique's lovely breakfast room and were greeted by her and the guests who were in the Nougat room.

On our table was a 3-tiered stand a bit like the one below.  One layer had cheeses on, another with cured meats and the other with smoked salmon.   Both were  garnished with cucumber, tomatoes, spring onions, grapes and radishes.  There was a basket full of delicious rolls, breads and croissants.  Veronique came in and poured us a glass of homemade/homegrown rhubarb and apple juice and  to take our hot drink order plus orders for eggs.  We ordered scrambled egg style, plain without any meat or cheese.

The food was delicious and in addition, there were homemade jams and on the table, granolas, cakes and pastries.  It was all very welcome and the atmosphere was calm and peaceful.

Veronque came to talk to us about our package and when we would like our picnic and also the Tapas platter we had ordered.  We decided to get the picnic that day and we asked if we could borrow the bikes as we wanted to cycle to Bruges. 

After we had packed our bags, we went to get the bikes and took the very easy route to the canal/river to cycle the 12km to Bruges.

It was quite overcast but dry and the cycle was very pleasant and gentle.

We arrived in Bruges and found ourselves a place to park the bikes.  We went for a wander around and stopped for a Brownie (C) and Hot chocolate in a quiet cafe on a side street.  I LOVE going for Hot Chocolate in Bruges as you always get a bowl of the chocolate drops to stir into your hot milk as well as a chocolate on the side and sometimes a biscuit too. I saved half of my chocolate drops for a later snack.

After a scoot around, we decided to cycle along to see all the Windmills around the edge of the city which we enjoy doing and stopped for our picnic by one of them.  We took photos for several people of themselves in front of a Windmill.

After this,  as we had started quite late, we decided to head back to Beernem before it got dark

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kezzie (@kezziesquirrel)

CBC recorded this video of us (me) cycling.  Not sure how he can cycle AND film at the same time.

Back at the place, we relaxed and read and snoozed and then we headed out to find somewhere for dinner.  It involved a bit of a random drive around.

Sadly, I didn't recall the place we ate but the chef/waiter was very friendly and helpful.  C had fish stew and I had a pork cheek stew.

We were very happy to return back to our comfortable room to rest.

The plan for the next day was for CBC to cycle from a village near Ghent and I would spend the day exploring Ghent.

xx

HERE

sdsdsd

Antwerp Day 3- Chocolate, churches and charity shops!

It's been a while since my last post on our Antwerp holiday!  I finally managed to get some photos copied across.

On our Monday in Antwerp, we woke up fairly late and after a lazy breakfast, had to hotfoot it across town on the Velo hire bikes to near the railway station. We had booked to go to Antwerp's Chocolate Museum. Having been to, and loved the Bruges Chocolate museum in 2019, I was excited for this one.

We arrived and put our bags in lockers.  They told us that the whole exhibit was Covid safe with nothing we needed to touch and was timed with all doors to sections so that people in groups didn't have to have any contact with other people. It was very clever.

The whole museum was really interesting with a detailed history of chocolate from bean to processing, to wrapping to all the different types and important Chocolatiers. It was hugely informative and fun to see.

One part of the exhibition showed you a vintage Belgium chocolatier and you got to hear from the woman who ran it (a reenaction)

One part showed some of the most iconic individual chocolates and their shapes in massive form

and introduced you to the great innovators in chocolate.  Here above is the Guylian shell.  Apparently, the most recent innovation was a truly new type of chocolate- Ruby Chocolate!

There were a few sections where you could see chocolatiers decorating and making chocolates.  There are opportunities to join demonstrations but sadly there were none when we were there which was sad as I ADORED this part of the Bruge chocolate museum!

This section here was where they introduced us to the ethical side of chocolate making and how the Chocolate Line is trying to support the communities who harvest and grow cocoa for them.

There were many 'instagram photo' type locations for you to take your picture.

As we progressed through, I became more and more disappointed at the lack of opportunities to TRY any chocolate.  At the Bruges one, there were chocolate button dispensers in various places.

 

It was only in the last room (before the shop), that we FINALLY got to try some chocolate. We were met by a lady who handed us a spoon each and showed us how to operate these melted chocolate machines.  They would dispense a sample of melted chocolate of all the different blends and combinations onto your spoon.  We started with those blends with a really large cocoa content and progressed to lots of different ones including the aforementioned ruby chocolate.

The warm liquid chocolate was delicious!!  We even managed a couple of samples of a few of them as the lady just left you to it!

We went into the shop where CBC chose some presents and some treats.

We then made a hasty stampede towards St Charles Borromeo church where I would be meeting one of my favourite Belgium blogger, the wonderful Ann!

We were pretty hungry and went into a nearby cafe where we ordered some food, hoping it would arrive quickly (which it didn't!).  Luckily, Ann was lovely enough to come and join us whilst we ate out lunch!

It was SOOOOO exciting to see Ann in real life after seeing her in beautiful pictures for so long! She is just as beautiful and stylish  in real life as she is in her photos!  She's also so incredibly kind and friendly! I've often been incredulous over Ann's writing- there is no way I could write in a language other than my native one in such an idiomatic way than Ann does and she is JUST the perfect person to chat to! It's so nice to be able to be able to natter and talk about those things you can't when typing.

Once we'd eaten our lunch, we headed to St Charles Borromeo- a well known Baroque church. It was built in the 1600's.  Sadly, the original 39 ceiling paintings by Rubens and lots of other works were destroyed, around about 100 years after it was built, in a fire.

It looks fairly undecorative from the outside, but the inside is WONDERFUL!

There is a wonderful Rubens altar painting.

The church is crammed full of things to look at- marblework, wood carvings, paintings and decorative floors. The organ is pretty exciting too!

There were confession booths here- so intricate!

After this, We headed off to......yes.....THINK TWICE!  For anyone who does not read Ann's blog, Think Twice is the most incredible Secondhand clothing chain in Belgium who have a very vast array of vintage clothes at reasonable prices.  They then have sale days where items get progressively cheaper until the final day where EVERYTHING is 1Euro! Ann is the Think Twice queen!

I was fortunate enough to be there with Ann on the penultimate 2 Euro day!  Because of Covid measures, we had to queue outside. At which point, CBC took himself off to go and seek a loo, which gave Ann and I an opportunity to have a proper chat which wouldn't bore him through not knowing all the things we were talking about!  Her we are in the T2 queue! You can see the T2 poster advertising the sale on the window!

We finally made it into the shop!   We walked around and realised we were very compatible shopping partners, showing each other things we though the other would like and giggling about things!  The selection was really good! 

We both ended up making purchases- Ann one skirt and me, a couple of items to add to my previous purchases from an alternative T2 I'd visited the previous day (there are FOUR in Antwerp!)

I was really sad when we had to leave so I walked with Ann to meet Jos, her husband, who was coming to pick her up in the car.  It was really lovely to meet him too!

We'd had SUCH  a jolly, easy time and I felt SO privileged to be able to meet someone who has become a good friend via blogland over the past few years! The nice thing was that we ended up texting each other all through my visit (and beyond) and it made my holiday that bit extra special that I had a friend who I could share my adventures with, who knew exactly what and where I was talking about! Ann had already given me lots of brilliant suggestions for places to visit!

That evening, CBC and I headed out to dinner to a bistro near Volkstraat which served some traditional Belgian dishes and I took the opportunity to choose the dish Ann had mentioned to be earlier when we asked about traditional Belgian dishes. I THINK it was called Endives au Jambon. Apparently endives or chicory was dicovered by a Belgian farmer in 1830.

CBC and I are HUGE Chicory fans so I was gleeful to try it.

As you can see, I was served the most ENORMOUS portion- that's my hand right next to it! It was IMMENSE.

A thick layer of bechamel cheese sauce with ham rolls and lots of endives plus mashed potato.

I discovered, after wadingt through one half, that all the MASHED potato was on the side I left till last and I'd eaten all the endives and ham on the left so my meal ended up being rather heavy-going on the mash at the end but it was a GREAT choice.  CBC had the beef stew. Yes, he forgo his veggie ways to try it. When in Belgium....

It had been a rather wonderful day and I wondered what would be next?

Oh...you want to see my T2 purchases????

Well, as well as the two skirts I showed in previous posts (the red daisy one and the blue/purple stripy glittery one, plus a woven leather belt), I bought the above.

Most useful were the navy camisole and the corduroy rose skirt which I wore whilst there. I've now worn everything except the rainbow dress and the teal top!

Oh...and here's an unheard of photo of me trying CBC's cherry beer. I think it was a La Chouffe beer.

I LOATHE and DETEST beer.  Watch me drink it and see what true horror and abject disgust looks like (apparently it's hilarious) but CBC insisted I try this and it was pleasant! I even took an extra sip when he went to the loo!

Hope you are having a lovely day!

xx