GENT REVISITED - AUGUST 14, 2005

Not every day can be perfect in every way but sometimes a day comes along when you wonder if it might have been better to cuddle up under the covers and stay there. Of course, the problem is you don’t know in advance that the day is going to turn out less than stellar. I’m not complaining though – of course things could have gone a lot worse.

We had one more Sunday in Holland and since it had been so clever to use our first Sunday for a day trip to the big city, we decided to do it again, just not back to the maze that was Antwerpen, and not to the a-little-too-faraway Brugge, but back to Gent, which was much more accessible to us. The weather didn’t look too promising, but we had already toured the town on foot and this time we wanted to visit some of the museums, so the weather didn’t matter too much.

The week before we had cruised into the town by a back way, guided by our indomitable navigator, but this time we were stopped short at a road block facing a large raised drawbridge. Maybe there had been signs 20 or so kilometers back but, if so, they had been in Dutch – no help to us. So we backtracked and followed a much longer route into town. I had set the navigator to take us to the “Oude Beesten Markt” where we had found such a good parking spot on our first trip and after some meandering we found it again, but now we knew why it was named the “Old Beast Market” because it was full of cages of animals for sale. There were scores of different kinds of birds, rabbits and assorted other "beests", but I got the distinct impression that they weren’t being sold as pets. There was definitely no parking here, but it was Sunday morning so we found a space not too far away.

We headed for the Tourist Information to get directions to the fine arts museum, only to be told that it was closed for renovation. The other museum that Frank really wanted to see was the Museum Dr. Guislain, devoted to the history of psychiatry – don’t ask me why! Probably because it was highly recommended it one of our guide books (but not even mentioned in the others). However, we were told that it was several miles from the center of town so we put that off until we were finished in Gent and we could go there by car.

There was another museum that sounded quite interesting – the Align Children’s Home that dates back to the 14th century when a feud between two leading families led to the murder of two children from the Align family. The other family was ordered to make restitution by building a housing project which was named after the two children. The building was built around an inner courtyard and for centuries was the home of the poor and needy until it was taken over by the city of Gent in 1941 and turned into a museum in 1962.

Frank made the comment that if he had the choice of a new career after he retires (probably at the age of ninety!) he would like to become a museum director because there is so much scope for improvement. And really, he could start at this museum which was really quite nice and interesting to look at, but we really didn’t know what it was all about.

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                               

We really liked these bikes. I wonder what we would look like riding them.

                                                                                                             

There were no signs or pamphlets or audio devices or explanations of any sort except a laminated page in a few of the rooms expounding in very general terms on life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. So we gazed at a lot of relics, instruments, tools, etc. and asked each other what they could be. There were some nice rooms showing what life was like at some non-specified time in history.

                                                                                                            

We were pretty clever to recognize this as a shoemaker’s shop.

                         

                           

A candy shop – I think that’s St. Nicholas in the corner there.

                                                                                                               

The corner grocery

                           

                           

                           

                           

My favourite – the local beauty / barber shop

                                                                                                               

The apothecary

                                                                                                             

                                                                                                             

So we left the museum not much more knowledgeable about anything but ready to tackle lunch. On our first visit I had been disappointed to learn  about the 15th century Meat Hall (Groot Vleeshuis) too late to have a meal there so that was where we headed.

Those are real hams.

The menu was not very extensive, maybe because they limited themselves to products and produce from the immediate region. Perhaps there was more choice in the dining room with the white table cloths, but we had a nice lunch sitting under the beams and the hams and I got to taste some of it in my ham and cheese fritter. Frank had some eggnog for dessert and liked it so much he had to buy a jar of it. It’s so thick you could spread it on something, I’m just not sure what. You have to eat it with a spoon like a custard.

                                                                              

                                                                              

22% alcohol!

                                                                              

                                                                              

After lunch we took a walk around town and briefly considered taking a boat tour, but it started raining again so the boat tour didn’t sound so attractive any more. The sun soon returned but it was still windy and quite cool. We decided we had seen all we wanted of Gent for the time being and anyway we still had one more museum to visit.

Back in our car we tried to program our navigator to take us to the museum but it wouldn’t accept the road it was on so we had to choose the main road closest to it. The problem with that is that when you arrive you don’t know what direction to go and so we travelled quite a ways in the wrong direction before we turned around and tried the other way. We finally found the psychiatric hospital / sanatorium which houses the museum.

The hospital is built around a series of inner courtyards which we had to wander through to get to the museum.

                                                                              

When we saw people we wondered if they were visitors or inmates.
Were they wondering the same about us?

                                                                              
When we finally arrived at the museum office we were told that the central computer was down so that the security cameras weren’t working and the museum was closed until the repairman arrived and fixed it. We could wait if we liked but there was no guarantee it would be fixed before closing time. We decided – it was Sunday after all – not to wait around for the elusive repairman and to accept this as the final hint of the day that we maybe should have stayed in bed.