The Great Escape

  June 29 - Antwerp (Day trip to Lier) When we arrived in Antwerp yesterday we more or less jumped off one train and on to another on our way to our accommodation, and hence, didn’t get to see much of Antwerp Centraal.  However, today we’d organised a day trip to the nearby town of Lier (sounds a bit like the name Leah), and this meant having the opportunity to have a bit more of a look around the station proper.  Well, OMG, what a building it is, it’s fantastic, it’s definitely in the Champions League of railway stations! 😃 On our arrival into Lier our first port of call was to check out the town’s Stadhuis (Town-hall),  one of two UNESCO world heritage sites in town. The main part of the building was completed in 1740, and is really quite impressive inside, whereas the attached belfry was built so much earlier, in 1369.  Our next stop was to the Museum of Timekeeping.  Housing mostly works of one man, Louis Zimmer, this is home to the spectacular Jubile...

  June 28 - Gent to Antwerp   A bit of a slow start today as we get the late morning train to Antwerp.  Once into our accommodation we took off for a little bit of an explore around town.  As per other places we’ve been to in Belgium the locals have done a great job in preserving some of their older buildings, they really are quite impressive.   While walking along the River Schelde, which runs alongside the historic old town, we came across an old castle.  Imaginatively called ‘Het Steen’ (The Castle!), it’s quite a nice looking building on the outside, however, the local tourist information office are now using the building and unfortunately it’s pretty boring and sterile inside.   Off to the docks later this afternoon for an ice cream/ beer/ dinner and to be honest we were a little bit disappointed.  Although there are bars and restaurants by the waterside, there weren’t that many, and the whole place had that Melbourne Docklands feel about ...

  June 27 - Gent - (Day trip to Bruges) As nice as Gent is you can’t be this close to Bruges without paying it a visit and so today this is where we went. Just 30 minutes away by train from Gent, Bruges is another beautiful well preserved Belgian city, as well as a UNESCO world heritage site.  Once one of the most prosperous cities of Europe, it started to go downhill financially when the Zwin canal, the city’s only access to the sea, started silting up. The outcome of this was a major business downturn, this then resulted in companies departing for other cities, and then this in turn causing a further lack of business investment. All this lack of investment in the ‘modernisation’ of the place then helped preserve the city’s medieval features, which in the end turned out to be a fantastic result for everyone! 😃 As we’d been here previously we didn’t actually have any plans today, just a bit of a wander around checking out some of the fantastic buildings scattered around to...

  June 26 - Gent Our first visit this morning was to Gravensteen, a local castle. Built in 1180, as the residence for the Counts of Flanders, it’s had an eventful history as it’s also been used as a court, prison, mint, and a cotton factory.  It’s quite nice on the outside but a little bit sparse on the inside, however, what made the whole visit worthwhile was the audio guide. Spoken by a local comedian as one of the historical counts, it was all very irreverent and really quite funny.  Considering the weather was so nice JEM decided that we would take a trip around town on one of the tourist boats.  This turned out to be a great idea as this was a really nice way to see the city from a different perspective from what we normally see walking.  In addition the guide helped make it even more interesting as he did so in five languages, English, French, German, Dutch, and Spanish!    Continuing on with our city tour by foot, and seeing all the magnificent...

  June 25 - Ieper to Gent Only a short journey of about an hour this morning on our way to Gent. The railway station here is quite nice with some lovely painted panels depicting the city’s historic past.  After booking into our accommodation we took off for a visit to Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, home to the ‘Gent Altarpiece’ a.k.a. ‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’.  This is a large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece, painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, and is considered a masterpiece of European art, as well as the worlds first major oil painting (when tempura was the norm). It marked the transition from Middle Age to Renaissance art and is just magnificent. It’s also had a bit of a chequered history as well, having been stolen by Napoleon, AND Hitler, and then been painted over by the request of the church (the ‘nudey’ bits!). However, the good news is that over the last few years there has been some major restoration work done  on this and now it’s comple...

  June 24 - Ieper This morning started with our first real rain of the trip (not surprising really after tempting fate yesterday 😊 ) but it wasn’t an issue as the plan today was to spend some time in the ‘In Flanders Field’ museum (named after a poem written by a WWI army doctor).  Providing an excellent and informative overview of WWI, and with an obvious focus on the Western Front in Flanders, the museum visit was terrific and the three or so hours we spent in there just flew by.  The museum uses an excellent combination of traditional museum exhibits (maps, documents, etc.) plus audiovisual presentations and re-creation displays to provide a pretty special experience.  One example of this type of presentation was an interactive video with four soldiers, French, English, German and Belgian, who were talking about Christmas Day in 1914. This was when a truce was held and soldiers celebrated Christmas with each other, sharing what they had, and singing Christmas ...

  June 23 - Ieper We went for a wander around town this morning and decided that this really is a lovely city.  JEM had previously decided that she could quite easily live in Lille, France, however, that has now taken a back seat and been replaced by Ieper, and I totally agree!  There are so many beautiful buildings here, loads of restaurants and bars, the weather’s great (he says tempting fate!), and the locals have been really nice, what’s not to like? (trying to learn Dutch maybe! 😆 ) This afternoon’s activity was an organised ‘Battlefield Tours’ trip with a local Belgian guide (“call me Jack, it’s so much easier than the Flemish version!” 😊 ).   Not knowing a lot about WW1, and especially any action around this area, we’d booked this particular tour as it was of a generalist nature and would give us an overall picture of what actually happened. Jack was great in this regard as the tour covered not only Commonwealth but German cemeteries and memorials as well. ...

  June 22 - Lille to Ypres (Ieper), Belgium   Arriving early in Ieper, we managed to dump our bags at the B&B and took off exploring.  Ieper, the Flemish name for Ypres, is best known as the site of three major battles of WWI, the most famous being Passchendaele. Because of this we knew there was going to be no shortage of interesting war sights to visit.  Our first port of call was to the ‘Cathedral’, a.k.a St Martin’s Church (for some reason it stopped being a cathedral in 1801!).  Originally built in the early 14th century it was then totally flattened during the battles of World War I. Post-war however it was completely rebuilt, and only taking 8 years to complete, a fantastic effort. A beautiful building, it has some magnificent stained glass windows and a particularly ‘speccy’ rose window.    Our next stop was to the St George’s Memorial Church. Built to commemorate the over 500,000 British and Commonwealth troops who died in the three battle...