“No it’s not,” Ella is vehement. “It’s a march.” Whatever it was, we ran into it after the bus that was meant to deliver us to some flower festival by the university came to an abrupt stop behind a line of stalled buses. It was May 1st, a Belgian holiday, and over breakfast coffee we had…
Month: May 2026
Food and canal watching
I neglected to mention, yesterday in Bruges we had, according to the waiter, the most traditional, local dish you can have: Flemish beef stew in beer sauce served with fries and a small salad. Sorry, the only thing I took a picture of was… Today, after all the protest excitement, we were walking along a…
Power to the people
May Day! Here it is like our Labor Day. We knew there would be parades and festivities in the afternoon. We tried to figure out the parade route but weren’t successful. So, we thought, there is some great street art down by the Botanical gardens. Let’s go see that and by the time we get…
Memling Before 5!
Yesterday I figured we’d hit the Hans Memling exhibit at St. John’s Hospital on the way to the train station. So after lunch on the main square we set our Google Maps in the direction of the Janshospitaal Museum and after missing the understated entrance about four times, I realized that we only had a…
Ghent chocolates
The Adornes Domain
Central Bruges is another medieval movie set surrounding a large square in the shadow of a famous thirteenth century belfry tower. I half expected to discover a dead body at the foot of the tower below the balcony. If you’ve seen Martin McDonagh’s hilarious film “In Bruges” you’ll know what I’m talking about. And for all…
Belgian trains do work after all
If you read my post about our crazy train experience the day we took a little excursion to Mechelen, well, I’m here to tell you that we’ve had some much smoother journeys since then. From Brussels to Ghent a few days ago and yesterday to and from Bruges, smooth as silk. Was that Smurf in the…
“old masters were women too!”
I mentioned in a post a couple days ago that we’d stopped in at the Museum of Fine Arts (. ) in Ghent. I am not one who seeks out old masters. Sure, I can admire the technical prowess and the part played in the evolution of painting – use of perspective and sometimes painstaking…