Gent

After our morning visit to Brugge, we boarded the bus full of anticipation because, as stated in the itinerary:

In the afternoon, we'll continue to Ghent, once one of Europe's most important cloth-making cities and, in the Middle Ages, one of the continent's richest and largest metropolises. The city impresses with its well-preserved historic center, lively squares, and magnificent buildings that reflect its rich cultural heritage. Both cities [Bruges and Ghent] offer a wealth of picturesque nooks and crannies that your tour guide will show you today. Enjoy the special atmosphere that fascinatingly blends history and modernity.

So much for that. A married couple simply couldn't find their way back to the bus, so the rest of the tour group was held hostage for 90 minutes until our driver, after consulting with the supreme Tour Guide in faraway Germany, got the green light to continue. The couple reportedly complained that the bus hadn't waited any longer and that they had to take the train from Brugge to Antwerpen.

Be that as it may. Time was irretrievably lost, the visit to Gent was compromised, and it turned into a quick city tour.

The Flemish name Gent derives from the Celtic word ganda (French Gand), meaning confluence. In Gent, the Leie and the Scheldt rivers converge.

Gent, with its guttural Flemish sound, has nothing to do with English gent, so Anglophones write the city as Ghent. With a population of 270.000 it is Belgium's second-largest city after Antwerpen and is the capital of the province of East Flanders.

Most impressive is the Belfried (Belfry), Gent's 95 m bell tower. It was erected around 1370 as a symbol of civic power, including in opposition to that of the Church. It served as a watchtower to spot town fires and approaching enemies and was a place to proclaim public announcements. A bell rang the time, signaled the opening and closing of the town gates, and marked the start and end of working hours.

The steeple of Saint Bavo's Cathedral is 6 meters shorter than the Belfried.

There are more towers in Gent. The late-medieval noble residence Rijhove, built in Flemish Gothic and Renaissance styles, features a round white limestone tower. Today, the complex houses the Miry Concertzaal.

In Gent too, the eagle, this time on an obelisk and sphere, caught Red Baron's attention. This time my intuition was true. It is l'Aigle Imperial. When Napoleon integrated Flanders into the French Empire, he made Gand the capital of the Département d'Escaut (Scheldt).

Mule Jenny met Lieven Bauwens in het Museum voor Industriële Archeologie en Textiel (©Lalieka/Wikipedia)

During the Napoleonic Blockade (1806-1814), which cut England's trade with the Continent, Gent's textile production boomed, especially after Lieven Bauwens smuggled a spinning jenny into Flanders and became the city's leading capitalist, tied to the Napoleonic regime's favor toward industry.

From 1811 to 1814, in the last years of the French period, Bauwens served as mayor of Gent. After British competition returned, he became bankrupt.

Approaching Saint Bavo.

The Cathedral's interior.

The Stadshal from 2012. Its roof rests on a few massive concrete cores and resembles a giant, sloping gable prism. Beneath lies a covered, open space that serves as a plaza for markets, concerts, festivals, etc. Initially, the hall was controversial because the modern building stands right next to the medieval Belfried. 

On our way to the banks of the Leie River, we passed the Oud Postgebouw, the former post office building, which bears witness to Gent's former great wealth. The clock tower is part of the building.

The Leie suffers from climate change and overfertilization. The "warm" water promotes excessive duckweed growth.

Once wealthy trading houses on Leie Quay have been transformed into expensive gourmet temples.

Our group rushed back to the bus through Werregarenstraat, better known as Graffitistraat. The narrow, completely spray-painted alley is designated as a legal space, so graffiti artists are free to use it at any time. As a result, the artwork is constantly changing. The street is both a tourist attraction and a gathering place for the local scene.

It's not finished yet. Stay tuned for the Maastricht picture gallery.

**

Bruges

Cover Design for "Bruges-la-Morte" (©Wikipedia/collection Van Maele)

The third morning of our trip was devoted to Brugge, or, as the Belgian author Georges Rodenbach described the city in his short symbolist novel of 1892, Bruges-la-Morte (The Dead Bruges).

  

Rather Bruges-la-Reflètende.

Our bus parked at Kanaaleland in the south. 

We walked over the red bridge, crossed the Minnewaterbrug, and strolled along Minnewater to the Begijnhof.

View of the Beguine courtyard from 1886, with its Begijnhofkerk. In the background is the steeple of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk.

Sisters crossing the inner square of their convent on their way to the Begijnhofkerk for a church service in 1974.

"A Beguine is a courageous, revolutionary woman."

Since 1240, the Beguines had been a thorn in the Church's side. In 1312, Pope Clement V banned this early emancipatory movement of widowed or unmarried women, and there were many.  

Between 1240 and 1565, 298 Beguine courts flourished in Flanders, including eight in Bruges alone.

A glimpse into a Beguine's little garden.

Born on June 4, 1822, lace maker Sofie Linseele keeps the Bruges tradition of handmade lace alive at the Beguinenhof at the age of 78.

You note horse-drawn carriages in the distance.

We continued, joined Katelijnestraat via Wijngaardstraat, and headed north to Bruges' Grote Markt.

Mariastraat jetty. The brick architecture of the buildings
is referred to as Vlaamse primitieven (Flemish Primitives).

Not just horse-drawn carriages, but also little boats invite visitors to take a sightseeing tour along Bruges' grachten (canals).

We passed Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk and stopped in front of the Gruuthusemuseum. It is housed in Lodewijk van Gruuthuse's palace. Lodewijk was not only rich but also a trusted councilor to Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy.

After the duke's death on the battlefield at the gates of Nancy, he also cared for Charles' daughter, Mary of Burgundy. Grateful for his support in the difficult times after her father's death, she appointed him chamberlain to her young son Philip.

Red Baron thought the horseman above the entrance honors Mary's husband,  Maximilian I, who took any effort to look after his gedechtnus (memory), but it is Lodewijk. The inscription reads Plus est en vous (There is more in you than you realize).

Bruges, too, would not be complete without the patron saint of bridges, St. Nepomuk.

The buildings lining the small passage to the Grote Markt date from 1614 and 1608; that is, they were built during the Tachtigjarige Oorlog (Eighty Years' War) between the Netherlands and Spain, which began in 1568 and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic.

We skipped the Grote Markt and went back to Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk to admire Michelangelo's De Heilig Maagd en het Kind,

When we entered the church, Barend van Orley's 1534 Triptych of the Passion over the high altar caught our attention.

Nearby are the sarcophagi of Charles the Bold and his daughter Mary, who died in a riding accident at the age of 24.

Then we entered the cappella sacra created in the 18th-century Baroque style. 

It enshrines the most celebrated art treasure of the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk: a white marble sculpture of the Madonna and Child created by Michelangelo around 1504.

It was time for a rest. Sitting outside, over a quick lunch, we observed the horse-drawn carriages fly by.

 

**

Angst

Angst is no longer just a German phenomenon: A specter is haunting the world – the specter of angst*.
*A play on words based on the opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto

People are suffering from Weltstress (global stress) and feel they are losing control of their lives. They are at the mercy of climate change; as a consequence of senseless wars, they suffer from high prices caused by resource shortages; they hear AI predicting their imminent demise; and they feel lonely despite an oversupply of friend requests on social media.

Many people are overwhelmed by the fast-paced present and lament, “Everything used to be better in the past.”

They see decline on all fronts. Germans no longer trust the established parties to get their country‘s problems under control. Anger mingles with citizens’ angst for their future: “Those who govern us are incompetent; they can’t get things under control.”

Former East Germany is AfD land,
while in the West the Christian Democrats are still (?) dominant (©Deutsche Telekom).

People are looking for ways out of this threatening trend and seeking alternatives. Hoping to restore a predictable outlook to their lives, they vote for politicians or parties that cater to this longing.

Indeed, these parties offer simple solutions with slogans like socialization, expropriation, Tax the Rich, remigration, Dexit*, back to our national roots, and the DM. These catchwords will surely make life cheaper and foreign influence more bearable.
*coined after Brexit

Who will bear the costs? Tariffs*, the rich, and big tech.
*or another country: Mexico will pay for the wall

©Deutsche Telekom

Meanwhile, in Germany, a shrinking centrist bloc is fighting to keep its government afloat amid dwindling revenues. Social benefits, personnel costs, and subsidies rise; public spending on these items will climb to 52.0% of gross domestic product this year, and the trend is upward. Germany is not yet the European champion, with Finland (58.9%) taking the gold medal and France (57.4%) the silver.

Because the ruling parties are suffering one election defeat and one poll shock after another, they shower people with favors, even though there is nothing left to give. An economic expert called the second German fuel rebate - costing 2.5 billion euros - an “expression of political desperation.”

On Monday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a lowering of the electricity tax to the European minimum for everyone, making German energy-hungry industry internationally competitive and easing the financial burden on private households. According to Merz, the government will use financial leeway in the budget to achieve this, but in reality these subsidies are paid for by increasing our national debt.

For decades, citizens should have realized that the state pension is no longer sufficient to maintain their standard of living when retired. Nevertheless, few did make provisions for the future. Only 48 percent of West Germans have a private supplemental retirement plan; in the East, the figure is a mere 27 percent.

When Merz plainly said in April that the statutory pension would serve only as a basic safety net in the future, there was an outcry. Citizens expect the state to rescue them.

Germany still enjoys a high standard of living. We remain the world’s third-largest economy. But the German economic model has limited long-term sustainability. The welfare state is severely overstretched, non-wage labor costs are high, and bureaucracy is enormous. If we do not address these problems, Germany’s economic performance will decline.

©NTV

89% of our citizens recognize the need for reforms, which will inevitably lead to sacrifices, but only 32% are willing to make them.

Germany is incapable of reform, and people’s angst will grow.
**

Antwerpen

After a short break, our group headed to Antwerp for an afternoon visit. The bus found a parking space in a deserted hall of the once florishing port along the Scheldt River.

Red Baron felt as if he were at the Hamburg Landungsbrücken, though the Antwerp pier had no visitors or large ships. In the background on the right, you see the castle, Het Steen.

The Margraviate of Antwerp, established around 974, was a border march between the Holy Roman Empire and, on the opposite bank of the Scheldt, the County of Flanders, subject to the French king as its feudal lord.

Around 1200, Het Steen (the stone) was part of the city's fortifications, protecting access to the city from the western Scheldt. Most of the castle was demolished in the 19th century. Only the gatehouse remained of a larger complex belonging to the Dukes of Brabant. It is thus considered the oldest surviving building in the city of Antwerp.

Heading toward the Grote Markt, we passed the Vleeshuis (meat house) built by the butchers' guild in the late Gothic style around 1500. The red-and-white masonry was deliberately made to resemble speklagen (bacon layers). The towers, stepped gable, and the enormous hall were designed to give the rich butchers an imposing presence in the city.

Then we walked through narrow alleys lined with brick buildings.

The richly decorated guild halls on the Grote Markt bear witness to the city's former wealth.

A building with the inscription Bonaparte caught Red Baron's attention. In 1800, Antwerp belonged to France. Napoleon first visited Antwerp in 1803 and called the city "a pistol aimed at the heart of England." He loaded the pistol with two harbor basins, the Bonaparte and Willem docks, which were and still are the core of Antwerp’s modern port. 

The city became one of the Empire's most important naval ports and shipbuilding centers, where warships were built to support the Continental Blockade Napoleon announced in Berlin after his victory over Prussia. Cut off from global trade, the city was booming thanks to the arms industry.

And yet, the golden eagle on Antwerp's Renaissance city hall built in 1561-1565 is not l'Aigle Imperial, but the eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. It faces toward Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), the center of the HRE.

The Brabo Fountain (Brabofontein), right in the middle of the Grote Markt in front of the city halll, and the severed hand hold the key to explaining the name Antwerpen.

According to legend, a giant named Druon Antigoon lived on the Scheldt. He controlled shipping and demanded a high toll from every ship. Anyone who could not or would not pay had to suffer a cruel punishment: Antigoon would cut off their hand and throw it into the Scheldt.

When the Roman soldier Silvius Brabo passed by, he defeated and killed the giant, cut off Antigoon's hand, and threw it into the Scheldt. The figure at the top of the fountain depicts this moment when Brabo threw the hand. This throwing (werfen in German) gave rise to the popular explanation of the city's name: hand werpen → Antwerpen.

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The legend of the hand lives on to this day: Antwerp's famous Antwerpse Handjes - a pastry or praline shaped like a hand - draw inspiration from this very legend.

The Antwerp Coat of Arms shows a castle or fortified gate (Het Steen) in the center and two hands traditionally associated with the Brabo legend. In fact, the Brabo-Antigoon drama features two hands: the giant's hand and the hand Brabo severed.

For the city, the hand is a heraldic symbol, part of the founding legend, and a play on words with Antwerp's name.

On our way to the cathedral, we passed the restaurant Het Elfde Gebot (The Eleventh Commandment) that reads: "Thou shalt drink your beer with respect." Onze Lieve Vrouwe placed on a pedestal welcomes the guests. The interior of this old residential building resembles a church or an antique museum rather than an ordinary pub. Walls, ceilings, and open spaces are densely packed with historic wooden and plaster statues of saints, angels, Mary, and Jesus. Old pulpits, stained-glass windows, crucifixes, and altar fragments complete the decoration.

And there it was: the Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal in all its splendor.

The richly decorated main entrance was locked, so we entered through a side door and were confronted with a paygate: Adults €12. Red Baron qualified for the 60+ at €10. Even that seemed too much for a quick glance, with the rest of the group impatiently waiting outside in the warm September sun.

A screen displaying changing images of the cathedral's interior enticed those standing in front of it to visit.

Suddenly, the statue of De Buildrager (The Dockworker), bearing the inscription Arbeid Vrijheid (Labor Freedom), confronted us Germans with our past. Initially a symbol of the working class becoming conscious of itself, it also came to stand for regained freedom after WWII. The statue became the memorial for the dockers who kept working under the German V-bomb terror.

When we discovered these Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) in Antwerp's Jewish quarter during an evening walk, our consciences were deeply troubled.

**

Belgian Gems

... Belgische Juwelen was the name of a bus trip to Flanders. Unfortunately, the ratio was two days on the bus and two days of sightseeing.

Gaius Julius Caesar taught us: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt ... and Red Baron adds: Belgium too consists of three parts - Flanders, Wallonia, and the Brussels Region.

Caesar continues in lingua Anglica: Of all these tribes, the Belgae are the strongest, because they are very far removed from the culture and civilization of the Roman province; merchants rarely visit them and do not bring goods that might soften their spirits; and they are neighbors of the Germans, who live across the Rhine, with whom they are constantly at war.

This might have been true 50 before Christ, but in the Middle Ages Flanders, together with Northern Italy, was one of the richest regions in Europe. The cloth trade, in particular, made cities like Antwerpen and Gent wealthy.

©landgeist.com

To soften their spirits, the Belgians brew beer in 395 breweries and drink 87 liters per year per capita, but in Europe their consumption is clearly beaten by the Czechs with 135 liters.

©Der Spiegl

The other famous Belgian "softening" product is no longer cloth but chocolate. In Brussels, every second shop sells chocolate to tourists, but when it comes to consumption, the Swiss, with 10.5 kg per year, are the frontrunners and the Belgians are way behind.

And finally, the only time we're "at war" these days is with the Belgian voetbalelftal- the Red Devils wearing red jerseys - in soccer.

What splendor!

We arrived in Antwerp after a ten-hour bus ride, had time to visit the famous central station just opposite our hotel, and later had dinner at one of the downtown restaurants called brasseries.

Why is the flag at the top La tricolore?

The following morning, we visited Brussels, and our first stop - where else - was the Atomium, combining the words atom and aluminum, the metal with which the spheres were initially covered. Since its inauguration at the World's Fair EXPO 58, the spheres of the Brussels landmark have become unsightly from corrosion and have been coated with stainless steel.

A close-up taken through the window of our passing bus

The nine spheres represent one elementary cell of an iron crystal, enlarged 165 billion times. Eight iron atoms are at the corners of a cube, and one is in the center.

Staying on the grounds of the Brussels World's Fairs, we drove toward the Palais 5 of EXPO 1935. Built in the Art Deco style, it has a stepped, almost pyramid-like silhouette and an austere, monumental facade. Verdigris-colored bronze statues top the vertical pillars.

In the background, the Palais de Justice dome rises.

As we entered Brussels's Manhattan district, the bus had to stop at a traffic light. We got a glimpse of a triangular steel form from which an arc has been removed and displaced. The black satin-painted object stands in the center of a shallow reflecting basin. The artist, Maria Wierusz-Kowalski, created the sculpture in 1997 and called it Esprit ouvert - Perspectives et Réflexions.

To the right, you enter the "bilingual" Galerie des Princes / Prinsen Galerij.

Eventually, we stepped off the bus and walked through the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert. This shopping mall was modeled after Milan's famous shopping gallery, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.

We passed the chocolaterie, Neuhaus. Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss immigrant, founded his company in 1857 in Brussels and opened the first chocolate store in the Galeries Royales. In 1912, his grandson, Jean Neuhaus II, invented the chocolate praline, a decadent chocolate cream ganache center inside a chocolate shell. 

On our way to the other landmark every visitor must see, we noted La Friterie. Looking inside made our mouths water. 

Eventually, we reached another Brussels landmark: the Manneken Pis. His origin is rooted in a legend. In the 14th century, foreign troops besieged Brussels. When the city stubbornly held ground, the attackers secretly placed explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Julianske, observing the preparations, urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city.

The earliest mention of Manneken Pis in a document dates to the mid-15th century. At that time, the pissing boy wasn't a tourist attraction, as Jacobus Harrewijn's 1697 gravure shows.

The water jet must have been stronger back then (©Jijuc/Wikipedia)

The Fontaine de Manneken-Pis was part of Brussels' water supply!

In 1695, during the Nine Years' War, Louis XIV's troops bombarded Brussels, heavily damaging the city's water supply. For some time the Manneken could not deliver his water. When the pipes were repaired, the little pisser was triumphantly returned to its pedestal. Above his head, the grateful citizens placed the text of Psalm 27:5-6: In petra exaltavit me, et nunc exaltavi caput meum super inimicos meos (He hath set me high upon a rock (pedestal). And now he hath lifted up my head above my enemies.)

On our way back, we passed La Frieterie again, and this time we stopped and stepped in. Without exaggeration, I had the most expensive, but best, French fries of my life. How do the Belgians make them ...

Seen in Gent

I asked ChatGPT, and here is the answer:

1. The potato
They traditionally use floury, high-starch potatoes, such as Bintje. The high starch and relatively low moisture are important for the fluffy interior.
2. Cut thick
Belgian frites are generally cut considerably thicker than fast-food fries - roughly 10- 13 mm. This gives enough potato inside to remain soft and creamy.
3. First frying - relatively cool
The raw fries are fried at around 140-160°C for several minutes. They cook through without becoming brown. The inside becomes soft and fluffy while the outside develops the beginnings of a crust.
4. Resting
This is an important part. The fries are taken out and allowed to drain and cool for a while.
5. Second frying - very hot
Just before serving, they go back into the fat at about 175-190°C. The remaining surface moisture rapidly turns into steam, producing a dry, crisp exterior.

Spectacular Gustav Klimt for sale.

Little of the traditional Belgian broderie remains. I didn't ask for the price.

Then our guide led us to Brussels' Grand-Place, devastated by the French bombardment in 1695 but, like the Manneken Pis, it rose from its ashes. The place is surrounded by the Hôtel de Ville, guildhouses, and La Maison du Roi. Many buildings around the Grote Markt were rebuilt and date to the late 17th century.

The Stadhuis, from the 15th century and built in Brabant Gothic, has a 96-meter-high tower crowned by a statue of the Archangel Michael. It largely survived the 1695 bombardment. But our guide didn't rant at the French but at the Spaniards.

At the end of the Middle Ages, Flanders, along with Brussels, was part of the Spanish Netherlands. La Maison du Roi, the Broodhuis, bears witness to this. Originally, bakers sold their bread there. The Dukes of Brabant kept the original name when they converted the house into an administrative building. Later, the building became the Habsburg governor's residence. 

Karl Marx, expelled from Paris, arrived in the Belgian capital in February 1845, and Friedrich Engels joined him that spring. La Maison du Cygne was a meeting place for the Democratic Association of Brussels where the pair often gathered. Marx was active in the group and gave lectures. 

In the aftermath of the February 1848 revolution in France, Belgian authorities moved against foreign radicals. Marx was arrested, expelled in March, and returned to Paris.

Horses pollute; electric vehicles don't.

Another historic building on the Grand-Place is La Maison du Pigeon. After Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état in 1851, in which he established an anti-parliamentary constitution, Victor Hugo, a staunch Republican, openly declared Napoléon III a traitor to France. Hugo fled to Brussels in December and stayed in the house decorated with a pigeon until the Belgian authorities pushed him out in 1852. He moved on to the Channel Islands, first to Jersey, from which he was expelled, then to Guernsey, where he stayed until 1870.

Stay tuned for more Flanders.

**