A belated finish to our blog

Ghent - Wednesday 5 August

After a comfortable, warm (we realised in the morning that the heater was on all night) and a little noisy night, we were able to leave the car in the hotel grounds ‘til we were ready to leave Ghent. The PoortAckere Monasterium Hotel was a great place to stay with its big rooms various buildings and the old chapel. The monastery cemetery still has some occupants, but most had to be moved to allow the construction of a car park for the hotel. We explored the monastery site and then walked into town. Rick’s stomach and head were not at their best (no, the head normally isn’t, is it), so we had a slow walk into town, only 5 mins away. Strange, but we ended up beside a canal and followed it into a busy, beautiful part of town. Another boat trip along another canal and well worth while. Guess what? Ghent also has a very impressive belfry. The only problem is that there was a head and stomach that felt they couldn’t walk up the 91 metre tall tower. The person concerned is partly ashamed to admit to taking the modern lift most of the way. Very disappointing, because stairs are there to be climbed. The view from the top, though, was fantastic. Building began in 1313 and as for many other belfries, was added to over the time. Coffee time after this. finally worked out the best coffee to have in Belgium, turns out it is the standard coffee. Lungo is a standard cup of black coffee with a bit of pourable cream on the side. This coffee was made all the better by being straight Arabica. Tummy loved it.

Ghent is another beautiful city and we were glad we detoured.

 

Ghent is a beautiful town (as are so many Belgian towns) with the expected belfry, canals, town hall and a great coffee shop.

Ghent to Ieper (if Belgian or Ypres if French) Thursday 6th August

We spent most of today looking at cemeteries looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. They look after over 150 cemeteries in many countries. Gary had done lots of research, and we were able to find the Lijssenthoek Cemetery and locate the grave of a relative, Colin Smith, brother of Ross & Keith Smith who were the first, along with their navigator and mechanic, to fly from England to Australia in 1919. Seeing all the headstones, so neatly arranged, was a bit confronting and this was a relatively small cemetery.

 

We stopped at a couple of others, with the final one today Tyne Cot at Passchendaele. During the Third Battle of Ypres (1917), the British lost nearly 300,000 men. Nearly 12,000 soldiers of the Commonwealth are buried here. There are many headstones for unidentified soldiers buried here as well. The huge wall at the back of the cemetery commemorates an additional 34,597 missing soldiers, who died after mid August 1917. There are more than 55,000 missing soldiers, who died before this date, honoured by name on the Menin Gate. The huge Tyne Cot cemetery is very confronting, putting all the unnecessary deaths right out there. Without all of the megalomaniacs, greedy, power hungry “important” people, Makes you wonder why we are on this earth, born, hopefully do some good for humanity, kill people and die.

Back to the car and off to Ieper. Set the shortest distance rather than fastest on the GPS to take us along some of the smaller roads. When we got near the centre of Ieper, we followed a sign to a B&B, in a very residential area. We were lucky, there were 2 rooms, very comfortable (the 4 of us have to share a bathroom, but that’s fine) and we booked in for 3 nights. The lady who runs it was very helpful with tourist info and maps. We had no idea we were so close to the centre of town and we have to go through the Menin Gate to get into the city square (900 metres away). We walked in and found a restaurant with simple meals, just what we needed. Gary & Rick both had a very tasty Belgian beer, a Keyte dobble tripel brown.  We walked back, towards the Menin Gate, where the Last Post was about to start (at 8 pm). There were too many (hundreds) people there to see what was happening, but we plan to be there early on Friday night to see all. The Last Post has been played there every night, except during the second world war, since 1928 in remembrance of the allies who died in the “Great War”. It was very moving.

    

 

Friday 7 August

After the ‘phone call at 2am, we spent most of the day ‘phoning Australia arranging plane tickets back home, talking to the insurance company, arranging to return the car early and waiting for return ‘phone calls. We were a bit stunned and most of the day passed in a blur. Fortunately we were able to arrange everything we needed to, including booking the very comfortable Mercure hotel at Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris and planning our route there. We went back in to the Menin Gate early and had front row viewing of the ceremony.

Saturday 8 August

After 3 very pleasant nights in a very comfortable B&B with a great hostess in Ieper, we set off towards Paris via the Railway Dugouts Burial Ground (Transport Farm), Zillebeke, the Windmill Australian Memorial, Pozieres and Villers Bretonneux cemetery and Australian Memorial, and the Adelaide Cemetery near by, where our great uncle, Douglas Fordyce is buried. Again, seeing all of the grave headstones really re-inforces the huge losses as a result of wars. One interesting light moment was when we got to the main cemetery at Villers Bretonneux and saw about 15 Australian MGs, 9 from Victoria, from the Australian MG car club, that had been shipped over in containers and were cruising through France and Italy before meeting the UK car club at Lands End, Cornwall.

  

When we finished here, we drove through the village of Villers Bretonneaux and saw the school that “will never forget Australia” We headed in the general direction of Paris and found an Ibis hotel in Roye, not far away. We had to clean and vacuum the car before returning it on Sunday afternoon and fortunately there was a car wash, very close to the hotel, in the industrial area. Job done.

Sunday 9 August

We didn’t spend a lot of time sight seeing, but did take some more minor roads for a bit of nice scenery. There was a need for a toilet stop mid morning, so we turned off the main road into a very pretty village, Senlis (didn’t know until we drove into the village) and sat in the sun outside a little cafe with some good coffee. As we knew what the next few days were going to be like, we took our time and enjoyed our last bit of our holiday.

Next stop was the Mercure hotel at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Very comfortable with big rooms to spread out and repack, coffee pod machine in our “Privelege room”. We had a nice last dinner in the dining room, with, as you’d expect, a nice bottle of French wine. Rick & Gill left first in the morning to catch a Virgin Australia (Etihad) flight home and Gary & Jan followed a couple of hours later on Malaysian. We arrived in Melbourne a couple of hours apart on Tuesday morning. Good to be home, but…..

Home now

Got home on Tuesday night and visited mum on Wednesday morning. We were relieved to see that mum was looking much better than we expected and her situation is not critical.
Probably because of the speed that we had to arrange flights home and not having had much time to accept that we were going home early, we still feel quite unsettled. At least mum looks to be in reasonable condition.

Ieper

Last night in Ieper. Went to the last post tonight at the Menin Gate, crowd of about 800, very moving.
Mum's health is heading south quite quickly, so we are too. Have cancelled the rest of the holiday and fly out of Paris on Monday morning, back in Melbourne on Tuesday evening.
See you all too soon.

Thursday

Just blown up the laptop power supply. Big pop and strong electrical smell. Will need to look for replacement to be able to post proper blogs. I'm writing this on an android app I know nothing about.

Ghent

We were sad to leave “Lady Lace” this morning. It was a house with so much character and so close to the centre of everything. The owners even forgave one of us  (not G, G or J) for messing up the convection microwave and melting what looked like a good microwave oven cookware cover (last night). Unfortunately the cover was over the chicken we were cooking, so I suppose we had a plastic chicken. To be safe, we threw it away, then there was one (small chicken) left. We had plenty of vegies and already had nibbles, so we managed to feed all 6 of us still. Tom was generous and, during the day, had bought a selection of Belgian beers for us to try. He really had to force us. The beers were all different and very nice. We didn’t get to try the very special beer that can only be bought in one shop in the world. Probably reasonable that Tom kept it ‘til he had time to sit and enjoy it. We did savour the beers and delayed eating for a while.

Anyway, back to today. After we dropped Laura and Tom at the Bruges station, to catch the train to Brussels to have lunch with a house mate of Laura’s when she was working in Brussels a few months ago and then overnight train to Berlin, we drove to Knokke Heist to ride on the Kust tram to De Haan. Phew, what a sentence. After the parking ticket machine not producing the ticket for the time paid for, we got on the tram. The map showed the tram following the coast for much of the way. It was correct, but unfortunately there was a big dune in the way. When G&R took the tram from south to north 2 years ago, the tram did travel along the edge of the beach, but obviously the northern section was different. Any way it was an interesting ride. We did have a good coffee and waffle in De Haan and went for a walk to the beach. Warm but windy. Jan enjoyed a very tasty pastry. There was even a portable library on the beach. We got back to the car, after the expiry time shown, didn’t have a fine and headed off to Ghent.

Followed the GPS and started looking for accommodation on the outskirts. We ended up in the centre of Ghent and quickly realised how expensive Ghent is. We are now in a 1 star hotel, very close to the centre at a cost of 86 euros per room. No breakfast included. The hotel is an old monastery and only stopped being a monastery in the late 1990s. This hotel has been operating for about 12 years. The rooms are big, basic, ensuite and have lots of character. We are looking forward to walking ‘round town tomorrow and looking at some very scenic canal areas.

Bruges Monday

The day started off with a stunning half hour (wished it could have been hours) boat trip around some of the canals. There is no doubt that water changes the feel of a city and this helps make Bruges so picturesque. Viewing the city, or parts of it, from the canal gives a totally different aspect. There are also some unusual sights along the canal.

After the “cruise”, we walked along part of the canal that the boat took us along and were able to have a good look at the land based stuff. We decided that we must have been very tired from the boat ride and the short walk so we stopped and had coffee and waffles in a small treed square before walking on. We ended up at the Beguinage Ten Wijngaarde with its white-coloured house fronts, tranquil convent garden founded in 1245. The complex includes a gothic béguinage church and about thirty white painted houses dating from the late 16th, 17th and 18th century. Practically all of these are built around a central yard.

The word béguinage is a French term that refers to a semi-monastic community of women called Beguines, religious women who sought to serve God without retiring from the world, as well as to the architectural complex that housed such a community.

We followed the map and walked through lots of side streets to get back to the house for lunch. It’s great to be so close to everything and be able to get back to the house reasonably easily in reasonable time. Deli bits and pieces and wine for lunch.

After lunch, we went our own separate ways, with Laura and Tom visiting the post office to post back 5 kgs of drinking glasses and more exploring. Gary & Jan went exploring in one direction and Rick & Gill in another.

R&G walked along some canals we hadn’t seen and stopped in Jan van Eyck (famous Flemish painter) square and visited part of the local library which was the 15th century toll house and eventually got back to the house.

G&J wandered through the streets, bought Jan’s present with the gift from Kris (thank you so much!) then sat in a lovely park to soak up the sunny weather and be mesmerised by the fountain. We then headed to a pub overlooking the canal where we both enjoyed a local Bruges beer (because Jan doesn’t normally drink beer and Gary did not have a drinking buddy daughter).

Need to start packing now. We have to get Laura and Tom to the station in the morning, then back to load the car with our stuff and leave by 10am. We’ve really enjoyed being in Bruges and being so close to the centre of town. ”Lady Lace” is in a great location, built in the 17th century, creaks and groans, lounge, dining, kitchen and laundry on the ground floor, 2 bedrooms and bathroom on 1st floor and attic bedroom on 2nd floor. It worked very well for 6 of us. ‘Bye Bruges.