Belgium's Blue Forest

 

The Blue Forest in Hallerbos, Belgium

     Labor Day in France

The first of May. Labor Day in France. In the US Labor Day is the first of September; labor gets a mention on that day. In France, on the first of May, labor gets the day. Everything shuts down. Markets. Shops. Most restaurants. And the tram and bus system. The only day of the year it stops. It runs, on a reduced schedule, on Christmas and New Years. But on Labor Day, every worker gets the day off!

    Belgium

But this is a blog about our travels to Belgium...

It all started with a Windows screen saver. There were these tall, thin trees above a carpet of blue flowers: the Blue Forest. Paula said, I want to go there! 

So we did.

But first, some research. We found that the the wild bluebells, that make the forest blue,  have a short growing season—about three weeks, sometime between the first of April to the middle of May. We picked mid-April and kept our fingers crossed.

The Blue Forest is in Belgium. We’ve never been to Belgium. We were never drawn to go, but now that we were going it made sense to look around a bit.  We were not interested in Brussels, the capital; it’s too big, too busy. Instead, we chose two smaller cities, Ghent and Bruges. These were prosperous cities in the Middle Ages thanks to good trade connections and wool, which lead to weaving, cloth, and famous tapestries. 

But first, we had to get there. It’s a long way from the South of France to Belgium: 1000 km (620 miles), a 12-hour drive. But the train we took arrived in 5-1/2 hours. 

We quite like train travel, especially in light of the crowding and discomforts—not to mention the security indignities—of commercial air travel. 

In comparison to plane travel, it's easy to get up and walk the aisles; there is a bar car selling drinks and snacks, and bathrooms in every car. The seats are wide, there's plenty of legroom, and always something to see out the window. Especially on the TGV (Trés Grand Vitesse), the high speed trains. They require special tracks that have been built more recently, and are routed away from population centers. So, lots of countryside to look at! And in the spring, that means green. 

The French countryside, seen from the train window.

Farmers' fields, mostly. Farms and farmhouses, usually old and made of stone. The occasional village (also old, also of stone). On this trip we were stunned by large fields of bright, intense yellow. Colza, we assumed; also known as rape; Canola oil comes from the seeds.

A colza field. So yellow!

Well, we didn't arrive in Belgium, we were in Lille, in France just across the border. But it took just an hour in our rental car to get to the small town of Halle, and the Blue Forest. (And, we were reminded of why we prefer driving our car: it took a good long time to figure out how all the “features” of that car worked! After a long struggle with the navigation system we realised it was disabled—we didn’t pay the €6-a-day navigation fee. So, we used the maps on our phone, instead.)

Paula had booked us into a wonderful B&B right on the edge of the forest, in the midst of farm country. Our host smiled and said we were in luck! It was the perfect time to see the flowers (but Paula knew it was those crossed fingers). We heard sheep bleating at us as we unloaded the car, and our walk to the forest took us past some impressive-looking Charolais bulls. 

On our walk to the forest... (but not a Charolais bull)

As it turned out, Lynda and Fredric, friends from California, were in Amsterdam, visiting Fredric's family. They made the drive to Halle, and we spent a couple of days together exploring the forest. It was great to see them there, and spend some time together. As an added bonus, Frederic is Dutch; he grew up in Amsterdam, and the Flemish spoken in this part of Belgium is close enough to the Dutch language for all practical purposes.

The forest itself was astonishing: a vast carpet of blue, with tall, thin trees rising above it. We spent a few hours wandering along the well-laid paths, enthralled by the extend to the, er, blueness. Lynda, an avid photographer, and I were constantly consulting one another on shots and sharing lenses (and camera batteries!).

Shifting lights makes the forest constantly changing.

Frederic wanders along a path in the Blue Forest.

A wild bluebell, up close; one of millions that make up the Blue Forest.

Photos don't do it justice. Neither does a video, but it comes closer...

    Ghent

We parted company with Frederic and Lynda, and the next day we made the hour-long drive to Ghent.  Ghent is very proud of its graffiti art. We downloaded a map, and spent a good part of our time tracking down some rather impressive works by local artists. 

Giant rabbits! We walked by these coming and going to our lodgings.

View from the Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market), traditional site of a weekly market since 1199.
The cafés and restaurants fill what were formerly guildhalls.

Graffiti covers entire walls in some areas.

Sint-Michielskerk (Saint Michael's Church) and Saint Michael's Bridge

New art for old buildings

The impressive post office building, along the Leie river in Ghent.

These extraordinary Ghent graffiti filled entire house walls.

    On to Bruges

The next day we moved on to Bruges, another one-hour drive. We'd planned two nights there; a good choice, as Bruges is a bigger city with more going on. Specifically, more buildings, more canals, more people, and more beer. And, quite unexpectedly, a harp player...

Canals! A delightful feature of Bruges.

We took a boat tour on the canals. Some of those bridges are low...

The combination of waterways and the endlessly fascinating architecture make Bruges a place to wander aimlessly, discovering picturesque scenes and romantic corners

The Grand Place of Bruges, the major town square where people gather to eat, drink, and see and be seen.

The Bonifaciusbrug pedestrian bridge, leading to the O.L.V.-kerk, Church of Our Lady,
which contains a highly-regarded museum.

A bridge over a canal in central Bruges; one of many, providing yet another picturesque opportunity.

Harps

As we wandered among the crowds in the city (and it was crowded!) Paula spotted a sign for a harp concert that was happening in just a few minutes. We're not keen on harp music, but this was a spontaneous find, so we headed for the nearby venue.

Oh my, not at all what we expected! Mr. Luc Vanlaere was not just an accomplished harpist, but also a composer and an instrument maker. He had a large commercial harp on which he played his own compositions with considerable expertise. But his studio space also housed his harp museum, displaying some classic harps, as well as copies of ancient instruments he has constructed himself. 

Mr. Vanlaere lovingly playing his commercial harp.

Here he strums the replica he built of the Lyre of Ur,
an ancient instrument found in what is now Iraq;
 the original (now in a museum in Bagdad) is about 5000 years old.

Luc Vanlaere with his collection of instruments, some original, others of his own construction.

Ahhhh.... beer!

After that extraordinary—and very unexpected!—concert and experience we continued our perambulations through the city. Belgium is popularly known for two products, especially: beer, and chocolate. Their expertise in beer dates back to the Middle Ages and monks finding useful things to do with their time in the monastery. Of course, beer is made all over the world now, but Belgium, and Bruges in particular, has a reputation...

A tiny part of the "wall of beers" that occupies a whole courtyard.
(Should we Americans be proud of that quote from our own Benjamin Franklin?)
Each bottle is unique, a different brew. And, every brew has...

...it's own glass! Yes, every beer is matched with a unique glass.
This public display of beer glasses is not far from the Wall of Beers, of course!

Beer at modern cafés. Two different beers, two different glasses.

Actually, one of those beers was served here,  the Café Vlissinghe.
Hardly "modern," as it is considered the oldest café in Bruges, dating back to at least 1515.
(But still very popular today!)

Chocolate
Oh, and a word about chocolate: while Belgium has a long-standing reputation for its chocolate, we didn't find anything extraordinary here—except the prices at the many, many tourist shops. We suspect that at one time the ingredients and knowledge needed to make chocolate were in short supply... and Belgium had the knowledge and its colonies in the Congo (not too long ago known as the "Belgian Congo"), source of cacao beans.

Now, though, everybody knows (ok, many people know) how to make chocolate, and the makins' are widely available on the world market. So, apart from heavy advertising from the tourist agencies, we didn't find anything special.  (I will note, though, that one shop was displaying "Dubai Chocolate," which is apparently the latest new thing in the chocolate world. So that kinda summed it up for us: these days Belgium is a place you can go to buy Dubai chocolate.)

The Beguinage

About a year ago Paula put an online library hold on a novel  - Canticle by Janet R Edwards - set in the Middle Ages. Coincidentally it became available about a week before our trip and was set in Bruges! The novel involves a woman living in a beguinage, a community for unmarried women who wanted the tranquility of a religious order without the commitment of vows or living in a nunnery.

And the beguinage of the novel was the Begijnhof of Bruges. Which still exists.

So, of course, we had to visit it!

Housing for the beguines (women who lived monastic lives, without taking vows). It was founded around 1244, although these houses date from the 17th & 18th centuries. 

The large central field gives a quiet, retreat-like atmosphere. 
The property has served the Benedictines as a convent since 1927.

We certainly enjoyed our time in Belgium, both the forest and the cities. But it made us realize that we prefer the warmth of the south, the climate of the Mediterranean. Still, it was a lovely visit, one we may repeat some day. Maybe...

We returned to Montpellier, the whole 1000km, by train. That was satisfying… while in Belgium we had a car so we could follow our own schedule. But the "heavy lifting" of the trip we did by train. 

Pre-petroleum, this is how the Belgians got work done. Wind mills, which were first used in the 1300s, were a great boon to the emerging industries of the region. (These original mills date from the 18th century.)

While enjoying the springtime countryside of France, we had time to consider the current world and the new restrictions on jet fuel. And we felt even more satisfied that our transport, the TGV, the high speed train, was electric, fossil fuel free! 

We'll hold on to those warm fuzzy feelings for the moment; this summer we'll be driving to Spain. But that's another consideration for another time!

Minnewater, considered the most romantic spot in Bruges.

A Little History of Modern Montpellier

The stair-step building, officially Tour le Triangle (the Triangle Tower).
Photo by G.Mannaerts — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118391102

We recently went on a walking tour of one of the newer parts of Montpellier, known as Port Marianne. The latest area to be developed, it is filled with multi-story apartment buildings, giving an aspect that does not match our romantic (overly romantic?) notion of what France should look like. We took the tour to better understand this new development, and perhaps to update our outdated view of France.

The leader of this tour, a French woman who worked for the tourist office, was the same person who'd lead the tour of Montpellier's Maisons Particulars we took last spring. (Now that was a tour that satisfied our idea of what a traditional French city should be like!)

I liked the continuity (as it were)—we were continuing our discussion of the history of the city!

And indeed, while the tour was billed as covering the newest part of Montpellier, our guide also discussed some of the history leading up to the creation of Port Marianne....

    The Polygone

Modern Montpellier really began after World War II. The city needed a commercial center, and after some years of fluffing around, serious plans were made in 1959. Twenty years later the development known as the Polygone was finished and ready for business. Exciting for some, horrifying to others, the signature buildings today look very much out of place next to the nearby stone constructions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

The highly successful commercial part of the Polygone. Yes, that's the Tour le Triangle on the left.
In the distance straight ahead with the sightly curved roof is the very popular indoor mall.

Under that slightly curving roof are many stores; the popular mall is often crowded.

Particularly obnoxious (to some of us, at least) is the Tour le Triangle, aka the Stair-step Building (L'escalier, as it's known among the French). Innovative in its day, combining a hotel, apartments, and commercial space, it is  "a signature element of the city’s urban panorama." Which, for many of us, means an eyesore on the horizon. 

View from our new apartment of Polygone buildings (hard to ignore!).

The adjacent indoor mall (which has a lower profile) is thriving, although much of the rest of the original development seems unused and abandoned.

The less occupied side of the Polygone...

Lots of space here, but no one seems to want it!   

    And, the Antigone...

By the late 1970s George Frêche was mayor of Montpellier. Known for his dynamic local politics, he had a powerful vision of what he wanted the city to look like.

Trained as a lawyer, he was a professor at the University of Montpellier specializing in Roman Law. As he was quite taken by the Greco-Roman ideal, his vision of the city included a neoclassical touch.

Overview of the Antigone. That's the river Lez, dark and tranquil, on the lower right; the stairstep  building rises in the distance at the upper left. The former military reservation lies in between. Note the bars and restaurants mimicking Greek temples along the Lez; residential apartments occupy the huge curving building behind them.
Photo from alamy—hemis.fr

The result was the Antigone, a very symmetrical and well-ordered complex of buildings with a strong Greco-Roman theme. The buildings are typically four or five stories, mostly residential apartments, with the ground floor reserved for cafes, restaurants, and other businesses.

The dramatic, classical architecture of the Antigone.

The Fontaine Thessalie in  the (wait for it) Place de Thessalie.

Wandering through the Antigone...

...can be very pleasant!

Antigone is a character from Greek Mythology, a Theban princess, who appears in a number of Greek plays, most notably those by Sophocles. So, solidly neoclassical! In English it is pronounced with four syllables, something like an-TIG-o-nee (emphasis on that second syllable!). In French, however, it's pronounced with three syllables: AN-ti-gone.

Pronounced this way, it sounds almost like it could be intended as in opposition to, say, the Polygone—the anti-Polygone. A delicious pun, perhaps, putting down the previous commercial development? That would be perfectly in keeping with the character of M. Frêche, who was never keen on the architecture of the Polygone.

A statue of the Greek god Dionysus (known to the Romans as Bacchus), god of wine and wild uncultivated nature. It's one of many classic statues scattered throughout the Antigone.

An interesting historical tidbit: these property developments were possible because the land on which they were constructed had been preserved as a military reservation. It fact, it had been controlled by the military since the 16th century, during France's wars of religion.

King Louis XIV, the Sun King, was anxious to please the Pope, who carried considerable political weight in Europe in those days. Protestantism had been on the rise, much to the chagrin of the Pope. So, to curry favor,  King Louis began expelling all non-Catholics from France. 

The south of France—the region furthest from Paris—was a hotbed of Protestant activity, especially in the city of Montpellier. To keep an eye on things, the king built a military garrison just outside the city walls. It was this property, originally appropriated by Louis XIV and used by the military ever since, that finally became commercial developments in the 20th century.

Looking towards the Lez. The statue is Winged Victory; or Victoire de Samothrace. Greek, from around 100 BCE. (This is a copy of the original in the Louvre in Paris.)

  

  Port Marianne

Overview of Port Marianne, with the river in mid-ground.
The lake beyond it, on the far right, is surrounded by residential buildings with cafes and shops on their ground floors.
Photo by Elmontpelierano — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39188667 

Time passed; the city grew. Community leaders wanted to develop the city in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, to the south. Detractors of the Antigone development pointed out that it was all urban, with little open space; developers of Port Marianne insisted on a mix of urbanism and nature. This development would have more open space, more parks. Plus the river Lez, and a small lake (the one seen in the photo above).

Some of the newer residential / commercial buildings in Port Marianne.

One question that comes up often (it sure bothered us for a long time!): Where is the Port, where are the boats, in Port Marianne? Well, there aren't any! The original plan called for a marina serving as a base for canal boats. But, due to the rise of the land, getting canal boats all the way up to Montpellier would require several locks which would take an hour or more to transit. And no one really wanted to do that.

So, no port, no boats. But there is that lake, the Bassin Jacques-Cœur (named for a very wealthy 15th century merchant based in Montpellier).

A canal boat base was built, however, but a couple of miles downstream near the small town of Lattes. It was named, rather confusingly, Port Ariane. Sounds very much like "Marianne" without the M. It seems the similarity was done deliberately: the good folks in Lattes are sticking their finger in the eye of Montpellier, as it were, satirizing Montpellier's failed attempt to build a port. There seems to be a good bit of small-town rivalry, with the outlying towns not too keen on the big city of Montpellier.

The new la mairie, or city hall building. Quite controversial when it was built!
(We could never shake the feeling that it was a Borg cube crashed to earth...)

But, from the right angle—such as here, reflecting the setting sun—it can be enticing. It is, in fact, quite a remarkable building.

The idea behind Port Marianne was to provide for four distinct developmental zones (referred to as ZAC in France),  each with its own characteristic style. (I'm glad we were told this, because it's a bit difficult to discern on one's own!)

La Mantilla, named after the traditional lace shawl worn in Spain; an image presumably invoked by the lacy white outer structure of the building.

One of the more remarkable buildings is the Koh-i-Nor, named for the diamond; presumably for the way in which the dichroic glass balconies reflect light.

Seen from across the river, the Koh-i-Nor is quite fantastic.

Some more recent Port Marianne buildings. The plants on the one to the left are watered from the building's gray water (from sinks and bathtubs).

Overall, Port Marianne has become an exercise in innovative architecture. While not every building is astonishing, it is a place open to builders and designers trying out new ideas.

The Cloud Building (aka the pillow).Specially engineered plastic panels form the outer shell.

Overall, it is certainly interesting, and sometimes a bit jarring, to move from Montpellier's center, the Ecusson, with it's "15th century buildings on 13th century foundations" through the oh-so-70s Polygone and into the sharply neoclassical Antigone, ending in the very modern Port Marianne.

We'll be spending Christmas, as we do every year, in Seville, looking up old friends and meeting again with our extended family. But first, we'll spend a week in Rome, just to shake things up a bit. We've got only a few more days here in Montpellier, but we will be back for New Years.

May your holidays be bright and meaningful!

A tree-lined residential "back street" in Port Marianne, showing its fall colors.