The Low, Watery, Windy Countries

I start my tour in Gent, an architectural gem in Belgium, and I’m the only tent on the campsite! The slow puncture I discovered in the UK is getting worse and I have to stop twice a day to inflate the offending tyre. After a reasonably warm night (it is crisp, clear and cold, with a layer of soft, wet frost coating the car in the early morning sun), I travel by foot along cycle paths to the centre, around 7 kilometres, visiting the majestic St Baafs Cathedral. Here is the famous triptych by Jan Van Eyck, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, which I don’t visit this time around (It costs around 20 Euros and part is being restored, but the Cathedral itself is free). Instead I marvel at the souring, vaulted, Gothic beauty of the place, with it’s tall, angular knave and alter giving slender, sinewy praise to God, reaching almost reach beyond reach to Heaven and away from this low, watery place. The strenuous confidence is certainly inspiring, complimented by muscular Renaissance paintings and intricately carved effigies of long dead Bishops, with eyes looking longingly skywards.

Wandering around, looking unsuccessfully for a for a foot pump, I stumble across a bar called the ‘Dulle Griet’, which roughly translated means Crazy Lady and which sells over 350 different beers. Now that’s the sort of watery substance I like! It is an ancient, tall building, consisting of stone block floor and bar and wooden walls, with small, rough, round tables looking as they belong in a Van Gogh painting. I ask for the menu and then, thinking I will do this another way, ask for the beer with the craziest glass! What arrives is 1.5 litres of beer at 7.5%, in a tall, elegant glass with a bulbous base, supported in a wooden frame, looking much like a miniature yard of ale. That will do nicely. The barman lowers a small basket from the ceiling and I have to put in a shoe as a deposit.

In the evening I chat periodically to a very nice chap called Adam, from Sheffield. He is on a tour of Europe, partly on a tour of remembrance, as his Wife died of cancer not too long ago and he has been following at some points the route of a previous journey with her, surreptitiously depositing her ashes along the way. After leaving the tent and then returning later, I find he has left a very hot, hot water bottle inside the tent flap. The following morning we chat a bit more before I set of and I give him my blog details, so, on the off-chance that you are reading this, thanks Adam, Top Man! :-)

Right now I’m in Holland, at a very small, friendly, farm campsite which I have to myself, Camping SVR Victorie, between Meerkerk and Almeida. People are surprised that I am camping and the owner took a photograph which she said she’d post on their Facebook page, to show people that camping at this time of year is possible! It is the ‘Green Heart’ of Holland and is quietly agricultural, with cattle, sheep, horses, tractors and quad bikes with trailers. Yesterday I visited a place called Kinderdijk, which is a UNESCO world heritage site, following a road that sits on top of the dyke. It is a strange experience, driving on a road which is around 30 feet higher than the land and thatched cottages, with small, burnt brown oblong bricks and creamy white mortar and brightly coloured window shutters of green and yellow and red on the left and the river Lek, with its procession of large Dutch barges, on the right. Kinderdijk is an area of around 19 windmills and polders, in a flat landscape of wetlands and geese. Seeing the windmills, I stop in a small layby and walk over the fields to have a look and take pictures. Some are still private houses, with bicycles leaning against the brick walls and freshly dug vegetable gardens. After walking around for about an hour without seeing another person and trying hard (unsuccessfully) to avoid the copious wet, dark green cylinders of goose shit, I get back to the car and drive some 500 metres, to discover that there is actually a visitor centre, which I also visit, going inside a couple of the mills and watching a fascinating film on how the complex series of windmills, the first constructed in 1738, work in unison, pushing water uphill in 3 stages, before it is deposited into the river. Around 40% of Holland is below sea level, up to 6.75 metres at its lowest point. I like it here, amongst the small, neat, friendly towns, which seem isolated from the usual busy, cosmopolitan Holland, with its proud cities and very busy motorway networks seemingly a long way distant, but in fact they are less than 10 miles away in each direction. And yes, I have actually seen a few people wearing clogs! Really!

Ready for the off

Home Sweet Home

Ghent Town Hall

St Baaf's Cathedral

Canal-side

Ghent Graffiti

The Pub

Now that's what I call a proper beer!

Thanks for that. After the beer, I was wondering!

Camping SVR Victorie, near Almedia

Kinderdijk. Well, it is Holland, after all!

Slanted church tower in Gorinchem (pronounced Gorcum)

 

Another coldish evening, but lovely sunsets in the crisp, dry weather