In which Sid and Doris gradually get closer to Bishop’s Stortford.
On the run-up to this holiday we were told that some of the hotels would not be as shown in the brochure, but replaced by others which we found were well away from the town centre. We thought about not going and Headwater offered us £300 refund, some of which we spent last night buying the room in this NH hotel which is so handy for the town centre and the station.
So it was a double thrill this morning to wake up and find the big square completely filled with a market containing everything that a determined local shopper could want or need. This included many many flowers – tulips at 10€ for 50, roses at 10€ for 20 (it is not expensive to be romantic in Belgium):
:
… all the usual food and market stalls… and then we saw this, which needs some explanation:
The delight is that it is an entire clothes shop, maybe 60′ long, which packs down into a standard trailer. So. First you have the bit on the left, which is a shell and slides over the top/outside of the bit on the right. Note that both bits have flattering peachy/pink lighting built in to the roof and into the flap-up side. Then the body of the trailer, which you get into by going up that step where the man is standing, has a full set of shelves for stock and even a CHANGING ROOM, which is created by pushing out the box that you can see with some blue/orange blouses hanging on it. Roll-down rain covers are built into all the flaps, and the whole thing is just a delight of engineering. Big thumbs-up to Carrosserrie Luc Smet, he is the dude.
All this delayed our final bit of Art Touristing, although it was a most pleasurable delay. Last night the Groeningemuseum and its Van Eycks. This morning S and D are back to the Groothusemuseum, last visited in March 2020, but we only have an hour to scamper around.
We make for the 15th century oratory, from which Louis de Gruuthuse’s family had a royal-box view into the sanctuary of the Onze-Lieve-Vroukirk, which he also had built. Louis was allowed to collect a tax on locally brewed beer. Given the cost of transport at the time importing beer would have been uneconomic so he was very rich. His titles included being Lodewijk of Bruges, prince and lord of various county sized places plus Earl of Winchester. Probably some cash for honours racket.
To keep all this going he needed to keep in with the Burgundians (who can forget Philip the Good and Charles the Bold?). Unhappily Duchess Mary of Burgundy died young and Louis was one of her executors. Mary’s widower, Maximillian of Austria, disagreed with Louis over the will and in 1485 had his stuff confiscated and Louis jailed in Mechelen for three years. Some change at court saw Louis free for a while but the wind changed again and in 1491 Louis was accused of treason. He still lived in the house in Bruges, but perhaps some of the joy had gone out of life? He died before a verdict was returned.
For S and D the house is full of lovely things and for your delight here are a few.
A couple of wood carvings:
and some really exquisite embroidery.
We finish with a look at the “loveliest view in Belgium” which features a dinky little bridge over which every tourist visiting Bruges seems compelled to walk. When we were here two years ago the house just to the right of it was For Sale. We took a picture and contemplated it for about 4 microseconds before deciding that the noise of tourist boats in the canals would drive us mad. As we looked today, a train of tourist boats were chugging past with commentary running.
On the way out a picture which Doris thought she had a copy of in the Jigsaw Exchange. Memorable because the person who brought it said it was not easy because all the grapes looked alike. Actually the one in the Exchange has more grapes, it turns out. Maybe grapes are some sort of test of painterly skills. Maybe Doris needs to get out a bit more.
At midday the duo must dash for the inter-city train to Brussels, narrowly escaping getting on the stopping at all stations train by which they would have missed the TGV. Good work Doris.
Oh, and crossing the market square back to get our luggage from the very handy hotel, we saw this stall selling dinner, in various stages of readiness. As well as chickens there were rabbits, chicks and guinea pigs (cf Peru).
The TGV from Brussels to London takes less than two hours. The line from London to Bishop’s Stortford is being repaired. After getting a slow stopping train halfway, the final bit has a replacement bus service which will give a time-to-home of the half life of Lead-199 so Uber it is, and a very pleasant experience thank you Khalid.
Outro
Cycling in Belgium? Flanders is flat, which is good because it is not up. But on the other foot, there is no standing on the pedals and whooshing downhill at no effort while taking the weight off the bald bottom. A trip to the Ardennes would feel very different and still have beer and chips.
The roads and tracks and priority given over to cycling mean that the nearest you ever come to an accident is with the local bikers zooming about. Towns and villages are close enough and open enough that you are never far from a coffee or an ice cream lunch.
Going in April was a gamble and we were lucky that in six days of riding it rained for a couple of hours, and then not much. Given that it does rain in Belgium our tour organisers might do better to use hotels with restaurants or with restauration very close.
We had a grand non-epic week.
Would we use a tour company again? The bikes were good quality of their type, and according to a bike shop that we looked in €750 new but the type was Dutch commuter leviathan. The hotels were mixed. The route offered did not actually go past the places of interest in the little guide, and besides some of the POIs were shut on days when the tour went by – so not that smart. We think that neither Dutch Bike Tours nor Headwater (who we had booked it with and who presented it as “their” holiday) had ridden the routes or checked out the hotels. Value For Money? No.
When we hired from LifeCycle in California the bikes, routes, stops and actual personnel present were all excellent and the price forgotten.
We will not use Headwater or Dutch Bikes again but maybe a company advertising in a cycling magazine. And either way …. lighter bikes.
The market and its amazing carrosserie.