Belgium-Ghent

As most of our regular visitors know we have a soft spot for our Belgium neighbours and we love to spend some time there whenever possible. Mostly for all kind of cliche reasons, so we won't go into that very much.

Ghent under construction

This time we spend a couple of days in the East-Flanders city of Ghent, which is a gem, be it a gem very much under construction. Most of the inner city has been ripped open which is a bit messy but it has it advantages. There were no motorized vehicles, for one, and it wasn't all that busy.

St. Niklaas Cathedral at night, temporarily amidst sand, rocks and heavy machinery

Ghent has a lovely medieval centre with cathedrals, a Belfort, a river front and miles of wonderful streets to wonder. Which is done best before 8 a.m., when most people are still in bed. The streets are completely empty then, which is great for photography.

Curve in the Leye river on an early spring morning

Ghent being a university city, there are many students everywhere. Incredible for people from Amsterdam, where housing is scarse and expensive, many of the Ghent students live in old stately homes in and close to the centre.

Wonderful Virgin over a side entrance to the st. Baafs cathedral

Belgium used to be a very catholic country, which is not entirely the case any longer. It will be interesting to see what will happen to all these wonderfull churches and so on will be empty. Recent scandals about child abuse by catholic clergy men won't prompt a revival of faith, we suspect.

Speaking about religion, fatwa, anyone...?

Not only religion is on the decline in Flanders. Friends of the blog know how much the BD-team adore those old authentic, seedy flemish cafe's. Unfortunaly, many city-Flemish have dropped their faith and have become post-modern, cosmopolitic wankers like the most of the rest of us Westerners. And we like to lounge in hip bars where we can order our sushi, Yak-burgers and have acquired other pathetic habits we consider sophisticated, which is highly detrimental to this old institution.

Another piece of Belgian cultural heritage going to the dogs

But let's not step into that nostaglia trap. There's still a lot of nice little cafe's left in this country. People are friendly and so are their dogs.

Hello Max!