Cycling in Belgium Day 3: Antwerp to Dendermonde

In which Sid and Doris cross the Scheldt and visit a beguinage.

First thing this morning Sid demonstrated the Bike, doing quite a good impression of Butch Cassidy on the novel invention if not so good looking.  In the first two hundred metres away from the hotel we pass a Hassidic Jewish man and a Muslim mother on very similar bikes to ours, both similarly dressed in religiously-mandated clothing: head covering, long coats and suitably modest trousers.  “All we need now is a cycling nun” said Doris, Abrahamically.

The route picked up an “Architectural Tour” cycle-route taking us through a Millionaire’s Row suburb of Antwerp. A spontaneous game of “That’s MY House” develops.

Also Doris’ observation that the Belgians have a certain view of nature which is that it should Know Its Place.  Nature in a polder – fine, it can run amok.  Nature round my house: trim the b*****r till it’s the shape I want.  Take that, yew hedge.

After that we had another go at forts, this time at Hoboken which will have some resonance for our American reader(s). However, it is in restauro or whatever the Flemish is for ‘not ready for you yet and probably not for some time’.

No matter, S and D have a nautical theme coming up. First the equivalent of a Trinity House yard full of buoyage.

And then the road comes to a surprise halt and turns into a free (free! These Belgians are so civilised!) foot and bike ferry across the Scheldt, featuring a sort of square floating converted fishpond liner.

Ours are not the only shopping bikes but we are the only ones riding them in Lycra.  We are engaged by a friendly somewhat-older-than-us Flemish couple who have the bikes that we thought that we might be getting – sturdy but lightweight tourers.  Which maybe also describes the Flemish couple.

Once out on the dykes again we find that Russia has not been completely successfully in making friends in Europe.  (Though it is quite possible Macron will remind the French electorate that Marine LePen had a E9 million 2014 loan from First Czech-Russian Bank that has since disappeared and this year has E10.6 million from a Hungarian bank.  Still, where does a lot of political funding come from: Koch Brothers anyone? Russian gifts to the Uk Conservative Party?)

Sid, down from his soap box and indeed his hi-rise-bicycle, is back up on the river bank and took this water, church, barge picture as the picture that sums up the day.

At this point energy levels were starting to run low and Sid dialled “ice cream shop” into the navigation app on his phone. By following its directions your duo had two wins – they cut about 8km off the route (which was going to follow a large meander of the river) and found a well-hidden but it appears locally famous ice cream shack. Our picture wasn’t very good so here is one from the Interweb which shows the building well but doesn’t include the large but fast-moving queue which should be stretching up to the photographer.

Getting into Dendermonde we headed for the town museum that was, a notice explained, regrettably shut due to something surprising happening in Flemish. But the beguine was open. A beguine is a community of women living a convent type life but without being part of any larger order.

To link this up with the start of the day, we include a picture of a beguine’s costume and a sort of beguine tricycle conveyance, complete with leaf springs.

Also, from the very interesting bit of the museum that dealt with local history/living conditions, here is a picture of the schoolroom, complete with Map Of Belgium At That Time (the Time was unexplained but it looked kinda oldish).