Sept. 25-28
One of the bonuses of taking a train from Antwerp is that you get to visit the city's extraordinary rail station.
It looks like an opera house inside as well as out: Regal staircases and soaring ceilings.
We had a couple of false starts in finding our way to the platforms through all that splendor, but that's all right.
Of course, in my experience ticket machines are altogether another story. Wherever you go they all seem to be different, and none is ever intuitive.
I always have to be very careful replenishing my Metro card in the New York subway, for instance. And forget PATH, or anything else connected to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Ghent was no exception, so yet again a representative of the firm had to come to my rescue.
The train ride from Antwerp to Ghent takes less than an hour. So we got to the hotel too early to check in.
No problem in this case. We left the bags and walked across the street to the cathedral square, which is lined with restaurants.
We strolled a bit and decided to start our stay in town at the sign of the fox. In Flemish, it’s ’t Vosken, and the walls inside have murals showing the fox at mischief in various fables.
We shared a ham and cheese sandwich, which also had a little bacon and a very good dressing made with mayonnaise. It was the best ham and cheese in my memory.
But the surprise was Palm, on draft on its home turf. I’ve had it in the States, but I think it’s not popular there and sits in the keg too long. It comes across as weak.
But I wanted to try it where it is appreciated. What a difference. I wound up having two glasses with lunch.
As usual, after a beer or two, I was ready to go to church. The cathedral is dedicated to St. Bavo (Baaf in Flemish). He was a spoiled Frankish aristocrat, son of the Mayor of the Palace, the guy who actually ran the country while the nominal king took it easy.
After his wife died, Bavo’s life took a serious turn. He entered the local monastery in Ghent, went on a mission with his mentor through the Low Countries, and gave away his possessions to feed and clothe the poor.
We didn’t try to tour the cathedral. We would come back to do that another day. We sat in the nave and simply absorbed the atmosphere.
Another curious discovery is that there is no St. Bavo’s bar. This may be the first time I have come to a church this important in Europe and did not find a bar named for it.
The cab ride from Sint Pieters station and our short stroll near the church convinced us that Ghent may be one of the most picturesque cities we have seen so far. Bigger and more varied than Delft. Definitely prettier and more gracious than Antwerp.
We checked in to the hotel, the Ibis Gent Centrum Kathedraal on Limburgstraat. We were on the European first floor, which would be the second in the States.
One wall was a window looking out on the cathedral entrance and the square.
Later we went to another place on the square, De Rechtvaardeger Rechters, where we had the Flemish version of bangers & mash. The sausage was almost identical to what I’ve had at Irish bars in the States and at pubs in England.
The gravy was more savory than the often too sweet onion gravy I’ve had before.
There were no mushy peas, though.
The beer selection in Ghent outshines anything we saw in Delft or Antwerp.
I had another draft beer new to me, Orval, a Trappist ale, which so far I’ve only seen in the bottle. It’s dark brown but not sweet, as many brown ales are, and at 6.2 percent ABV, it’s on the lighter side of the Belgian brew spectrum.
Then we moved on to Bier Central. It has 33 taps and over 300 varieties of beer in all. And they are all Belgian.
Try as I might, I couldn’t drink them all.
I did get to a few, though. St. Hubertus triple blond, despite the triple, runs about 6.5 percent alcohol. It is light on the malt but the hops are strong. The result is a refreshing drink.
Bourgogne des Flandres, at 5 percent a session ale, is dark red with a hint of sweet and sour. It has hops enough to keep it from being cloying.
Petrus Aged Red is a red sour. This is Flanders, after all, so you have to try a sour now and then.
This one may have been made with actual cherries. It certainly smelled vaguely of cherry pie and the flavor was like the best sour cherries I’ve ever tasted. It has a sweet-sour finish.
It is fun as a novelty. But I’d only drink one at a sitting and that only once in a while.
Joanna wanted to try a couple of local desserts. She ordered a pancake, which was thin and dense. We’d call it a crepe.
The waffle, which we tried later, was toasted crisp and very light inside. In a word, wonderful.
Rodenbach went well with it. The Rodenbach was similar to the Petrus, but not as sour nor, at 5.2 percent, as sharp.
Thursday we stormed the local castle, Gravensteen, or Castle of the Counts.
Google gave me directions that included taking the tram. The tram is a mystery to outsiders. I still don’t know how to pay the Ghent tram fare.
I started by taking Joanna in the wrong direction. When I realized the mistake, we met a man at the tram stop who explained that we could buy a ticket at a transport office near the stop were we started.
We went there, and the lady told me that it was less than one stop to the castle. She showed me on a map how to get there.
We started walking. Then we came to a fork in the road. I know. You’re all thinking Yogi Berra jokes now, but it seemed to me that the lady had suggested a route that went more or less straight north, and the signpost was pointing to Gravensteen up the side road.
I stood there trying to guess which way to go, when a lady walked up. She had heard our exchange in the transport office and realized we were confused.
She led us down to the riverside, and from the embankment, we would see the top of the castle. We passed numerous inviting watering holes (though none named for a saint that I could see) on both banks.
She pointed out the feature of a building that looked like a separate elevator shaft. It’s where they used to hang people, she said.
Around the corner was the former fish market, also a site of public executions. A baroque gate surmounted by Neptune replaces an earlier one destroyed by fire.
I think the place is called Veerleplein, and it sits right next to Gravensteen.
The entry fee pays for an audio tour. A Belgian comedian discusses various wonders of the castle, including several executions, the murder of an aristocrat who was sleeping with the count’s wife, and other customs of earlier and simpler times.
Joanna said we climbed up and down 166 steps in the process. I was a little tired, but not worn out. I felt like a kid of 50 again.
We had built up an appetite, though. We stopped for an early dinner at one of the restaurants on the river Scheldt near the castle. We opted for the Ghent beef stew, a local specialty recommended by the cab driver who drove us from the station.
I had that with another great Belgian ale, Westmalle Trappist.
While we were there, a group of musicians in Renaissance costume started working the restaurant row. We had seen them earlier near the cathedral. We also saw a similar group in Antwerp.
They serenaded us and passed the tambourine.
We asked the waiter about them. He said they were students from Spain raising money for their education. And from what we could see, having a good time while they’re at it.
By the time we had finished dinner, they were on the other side of the river serenading and dancing with a party of young women.
We finished the evening later in the hotel bar.
I tried one ale called Gruut Amber. It was very malty, which made it a little sweet, and ran 6.5 percent ABV.
I had a bottle of Gulden Draak, which I tried before, on draft, a few years ago at a bar in Philadelphia that specialized in imports.
It is definitely on the strong side of the Belgian spectrum, at 10.5 percent. It’s a triple, which may mean fermented three times. That, or it means you need three guys to carry you home if you drink three bottles.
Friday morning we found a great pastry shop for breakfast, Aux Merveilleux de Fred. That’s the name on the menu. Fred seems to be modest enough that his name isn’t on the sign outside.
It has a shining gorgeous interior piled with sweet rolls in the window. Most of the space is devoted to the specialty of the house, various treats made with meringue.
Joanna had one of her favorites, a croissant. I opted for pain au lait ganache. The ganache was a chocolate cream, which I could have skipped. The coffee came in full size cups and was very good.
They serve small meringue cookies with coffee. You bite into one and the meringue dissolves on your tongue.
The agenda of the day was St. Baafs Cathedral. Parts of current building date to early 1300s. Most of the structure is 15th century and later.
The crypt is much older, but we didn’t get to see it. It was closed for restoration.
Most of the cathedral is free to visit.
The great showpiece, known as the Ghent Altarpiece, has a small admission fee. Painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck and completed in 1432, it’s considered one of the towering achievements of the Renaissance in the Low Countries.
It’s also known as “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,” which is the subject of the main central panel. Other panels show Adam and Eve, Jesus as Pantocrator, Mary as Queen of Heaven, the donors, and choirs and bands of angels.
That costs four euros and includes an audio guide to the work that runs for about half an hour in all.
It was definitely worth visiting Ghent to see that. The experience was made more moving because there was an organ recital in the nave at the same time.
Another treasure of the cathedral is a large Rubens representing St. Bavo’s entry into the monastery of Ghent. It shows him as the aristocrat humbly presenting himself on his knees, and also as the monk distributing food to the hungry.
The main altar is surmounted by “The Apotheosis of St. Bavo,” a marble group with a background of golden rays. The multimedia touch reminded me of Bernini’s Holy Ghost window at St. Peter’s in Rome.
Candlesticks and the altar cross were gifts from Napoleon who visited the city in 1803. About 10 years later, Napoleon confiscated a few art works from here. Maybe in trade for the candlesticks.
They were eventually returned to the church.
We spent well more than two hours in the church and still didn’t see everything. It seems to be crusted with history and artworks.
For dinner we walked up to a place that had been closed when we passed it before. St. Joris is in an ancient building. The interior is lined with dark, aged paneling, and surrounded by an upper floor open in the center.
I tried another local dish that appears on several menus, Waterzooi with chicken. It is a savory cream soup flavored with a julienne of carrot, celery, and onion, cooked with pieces of chicken and potato.
I had that with the recommended pairing, Gentse Strop. According to the label, it is “a bold brew with character named for the stroppendragers, who walked the streets wearing nooses in defiance of Emperor Charles V.”
OK. I’ll buy that. It was bold enough, at 6.2 percent, and it had plenty of character. I’d order it again some time.
Joanna had “pan fish,” an assortment of fish meat baked in a cheesy casserole.
Both dishes were fantastic.
We finished the evening at Bier Central.
Brugge Zot has a fruity aroma and flavor. The hops are strong and bitter, and everything ends with a dry finish.
Cuvee des Trolls is a little stronger, 7 percent. It has a mild aroma that may be from citra hops and a bitter flavor with a hint of fruit at the end.
We went back to St. Baafs on Saturday to see what we missed the day before.
We focused mainly on side chapels, which contain many interesting things.
“The Raising of Lazarus,” a painting by Otto Van Veen, who was one of Rubens’s teachers, portrays Jesus in a pink robe.
One triptych was especially interesting because the left panel was the first time either of us has seen a painting specifically commemorating the circumcision of Jesus. The others panels show Jesus as the child in discussion with the elders, and then at his baptism with John.
We stopped in the gift shop on the way out so Joanna could pick up a few postcards. A display case shows several things decorated with details from the Mystic Lamb—many with the gorgeous painting of Mary as Queen of Heaven.
The image is on several things, including an eyeglasses case and, no kidding, a cleaning cloth. What was somebody thinking?
I couldn’t find one in the store. I would have bought it just to prove to people that such a thing really exists.
There was some kind of activity in front of the church. Actually there has been activity every day so far.
Our second day here they fenced off an area with a series of screens and parked trucks inside. That disappeared the next day, and someone laid down an electric cable, which also disappeared by next morning.
Friday night people were gathered to see tests of a projection of a Last Supper motif across the front of the church.
Today, Saturday, they have been setting up what looks like equipment for filming.
We went back to ’t Vosken for mussels and fries, which we had with Palm.
We went for a walk, but it was like Saturday everywhere—crowded and frantic. We couldn’t believe it when some young bitch with a big purse was so desperate to get into a store that she almost knocked Joanna onto the sidewalk.
I don’t know if she was doped or stupid, but she was so far out of things that she didn’t seem to notice anything.
Joanna managed to get in a little window shopping and wound up buying a Venetian glass pendant to go with the neck ring she bought at the curio market in Delft.
We hid out at the hotel for a while and went out later than usual for dinner. We had wanted to go back to the Bridge, where we had a tasty open sandwich of mozzarella and tomato for lunch one day—a caprese salad on a bagel.
But the place was packed on Saturday night, and it was too cold to sit outside.
We found plenty of room at Bier Central. We made do, but the menu is limited there.
So far, the food in Belgium has been generally very good. Bier Central, to my taste, doesn’t measure up.
Joanna was pleased with the Bolognese sauce at Bier Central. I tried it and didn’t like it.
I had a Margherita pizza. It was made with dried basil instead of fresh, so it had very little flavor.
The beers were fantastic, though. I started with an Affligem Donker, about 6.8 percent ABV, that was very tasty. Joanna took a liking to that one, too.
Then I ordered one called Hapkin, which was a little stronger, around 8 percent. It was also very good, but I liked the Affligem more.
When we came out after dinner, we saw what the latest installment of equipment was for.
The projection being tested the night before was a short movie based on Da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” It was accompanied by a sound system playing inspirational music. The projected image was broken up by the recess of the church entrance and other architectural details, but was still recognizable.
The film ran for maybe 10 minutes and kept replaying till about 10:30 or 11.
It was a good, strange way to end our stay in town.
Sunday we make for Aachen, Charlemagne’s old capital in Germany.
Be well, all.
Harry
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