I’d never been through the Channel Tunnel until this week. I have to say that for such a remarkable feat of engineering, the execution lacks a certain fanfare. I knew there would be no steward offering me a glass of champagne, nor a smiling, bowing Frenchman welcoming me to France. What I did expect was a sense of occasion and what I got was forty minutes in a luridly yellow tunnel – the occasional lurching the only discernible symptom of movement – then onto a motorway that was exactly like the motorways we’d just left except the signs were in French and we were on the wrong side of the road.
We headed straight for the border and crossed into Belgium about half an hour later. This was not because we dislike France – far from it, we are very much looking forward to the French leg of our adventure later on – but because we want to drive the ‘Romantic Road’ in Germany so needed to head North. I had earlier discovered that the Romantic Road ends in the Black Forest – where my grandfather picked up a carving of two wooden bears holding a bench that you can sit on, back in 1923. Black Forest carvings are still made in the Black Forest today and I am eagerly looking forward to seeing these. I also want to eat gateau. My excitement is made up of a perfect 50/50 balance of gateau and wood-carving. Maybe 60/40 if I haven’t had my dinner yet.
It is ironic that the more driving you do every day in miles, the less “travelling” you do in experience. We definitely want to travel rather than drive so we had a few days to make our way along the Belgium / Netherlands border in the direction of Germany. We spent the first night at a very small and very rustic campsite with chickens, roosters – or what I onomatopoeically refer to as “cockadoodlers” – and an ominous pair of barrels that looked like water butts.
The purpose of these barrels were not initially apparent. Rainwater collection perhaps? It was only later that the grisly truth slowly dawned on us.
For anyone who hasn’t been camping before, you have to empty your toilet yourself – and this is euphemistically referred to as ‘black waste’. Usually, you empty this cassette into a drain / funnel / receptacle that leads directly to the sewers, swish the casette about with water from the adjacent hose, wash the whole thing down and add your chemicals that kill germs and odours. It’s a simple process and not actually as unpleasant as it sounds (or so I am told by Tom who has taken responsibility for this job every time it needs doing for the simple reason that I refuse to do it). On this campsite however, you were supposed to empty your black waste into the first barrel, where it would sit, fermenting with the black waste of your predecessor campers for aeons unknown. The second barrel held what was once – presumably – clean water for the purpose of rinsing your toilet cassette. Now however, well, you can imagine the horrors that lurked in that second barrel and lets not even get into the first.
We declined to use the facilities of the campsite, parked in the opposite corner and left the next day. You have to love Europe.
We had a decision to make though as we were facing unprecedented heat. Two days at over 30 degrees. Heat is horrific in a motorhome and with a dog who can’t take off her fur coat, we needed to make sure Tess could cool down. The obvious answer was to be near water, however, whilst Belgium and the Netherlands are full of canals, getting access to the actual water was as difficult as in the Midlands. This left us with the only option of the sea, however, in Belgium, dogs are only allowed on the beach before 9am and after 7pm, which did not help with the horrible impending heat that hung before us like a giant, red threat: the heat monster was back. Our only solution was to retreat to a cool campsite with trees and shade and we found one that seemed to fit the bill in Sluis.
Sluis is a beautiful town just across the Belgium border into the Netherlands. In fact, all the towns and villages we visited in the Netherlands and Belgium seemed designed with aesthetics in mind. It is built around the canal that slides lazily through the village where a large fountain throws up elegant shoots of liquid sunshine and the windowsills, railings, streetlights all drip with a carnival of geraniums. The glass doors of the restaurants are flung wide open in welcome and menus and vases of fresh flowers fight for space on the table tops that spread across the pavements. It is a town that is fresh and clean and exciting. Above all, the church chimes the quarters of the hour with a tune that is at once nostalgic and beautiful – like something from a half-remembered fairytale. It is a place that makes you ache to live there as if this is what has been missing from your life for so long.
We spent two days in Sluis hiding from the heat, which mercifully abated to a pleasant 23 degrees allowing us to head to Bruges.
Bruges had been recommended to us many times in the course of the last two days. One person called it the most beautiful city in Belgium and another said it was a mini Venice. We had planned to avoid cities due to Tess not liking people, dogs, crowds, or any space that lacked enough green (a fussy companion to travel with perhaps). But… should we miss this superlatively beautiful, Venice-like paradise? Probably not. We decided to go early in the morning before it was busy, arm ourselves with lots of treats to bribe Tess into excellent behaviour, and leave before lunch.
And we were so right to do so. Bruges is quite genuinely one of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited ,and walking through the centre feels like taking a stroll through history. The streets are cobbled, the stones so old they have been worn away by legions of passing feet. The roads and pavements are narrow, making walking through Bruges a precarious mission that is made even more challenging by the tables and chairs that spill out and flood the pavements from every cafe and restaurant. You are constantly forced into the road where cyclists – who in Belgium have had the Divine Right to Cycle bestowed on them – come tearing up the roads missing you by inches. Then abruptly, the narrowness of the streets end and suddenly you find yourself in a wide and spacious plaza – like a clearing in a forest – with trees that provide puddles of shade, and park benches, and statues and sculptures. Here, the elegance of the buildings can be admired: the whitewashed fronts each with crenellated facades that look like they were built with an upside-down moulded bucket like a sandcastle. Tubs hang on windowsills crowded with geraniums that burst their banks and overflow with waterfalls of colour. Vines crawl up buildings to frame doorways with greenery, and little cornices decorate the rooflines with Madonna and Child carvings – a reminder of Bruges’ catholic history and an echo of Michelangelo’s sculpture which resides in the Church of our Lady in central Bruges.
Perhaps the most magnificent plaza in Bruges is Burg square which contains what has to be the most elaborate and magnificent city hall ever created: a sculptured wonder of white stone with tall black windows, blood red paint and gold statues and embellishments. It looks palatial and important, standing in the mouth of the square, bedecked with the Belgian flag.
It is such a sudden and powerful presence as you walk into the plaza that at first you fail to notice the smaller, darker, squat building tucked away in the corner.
It doesn’t quite fit with the surroundings and seems to crouch in its corner of the square, radiating a mysterious gothic vibe. It’s only when I retreated to a bench with a latte and google, that I found out the significance of this building and realised why so many people were taking selfies in front of it rather than in front of the more impressive town hall. This little building held the Blood of Christ within it.
It is the Holy Blood Basilica, built during the second crusade to the Holy Land around 1134. Whilst the average peasant was living in a one-room house made of wattle and daub – or sticks and clay – with thatched roofs and eating porridge and the occasional potato, the Basilica was built with its thick stone walls, small windows and rounded arches. It was commissioned by Thierry of Alsace – the Count of Flanders – who fought in the second crusade. It was there that he acquired the Blood of Christ – a piece of blood stained fabric believed to have been used to wipe the blood from Jesus Christ’s body after the crucifixion. The stories of how he acquired this fabric are steeped in legend, one version being that he was gifted this by the King of Jerusalem for his bravery during the crusade, the other that it was a diplomatic offering (or perhaps stolen) from Constantinople (Istanbul today). Either way, Thierry brought the relic back to Bruges, and installed it in the Basilica to ensure it was accessible to pilgrims across Belgium and beyond. This won him much prestige – especially as there was a commonly held Mediaeval belief that Holy relics contained Godly powers and could bestow miracles.
And, according to pilgrims, the Holy Blood has been the source of many miracles such as physical healing after touching the relic or praying to it. It is also credited to have protected the citizens of Bruges from plague outbreaks and invasions. In times of crisis, the relic would be carried through the city by priests to help safeguard the community. Ironically though, the procession of the Holy Blood was cancelled during Covid – the only time it has been cancelled – which was perhaps a little short sighted of those who made that decision. If there was a time when divine protection and healing was needed, it was the covid years.
Today, the relic can be viewed on Fridays and is still a site of pilgrimage. It is kept in a crystal vial, which is in turn encased in a glass tube adorned with elaborate gold scrollwork and studded with precious gems which probably makes Friday a stressful day for the Priest who has the job of bringing it out of its chamber! As. The day of our visit was Thursday and Tess was too doggish to visit a sacred site, we left without seeing the relic.
We did however, see another relic of Belgium: the Belgian waffle. Stopping by a stand that promised the best waffles in Belgium, we bought two waffles that arrived in a cardboard tray with a little flag stuck in it and laced with copious amounts of chocolate sauce. We perched on tiny chairs on a pavement that was so narrow, we practically had to turn our feet sideways to avoid cars running over them, and indulged in perfection. We can’t attest to them being the best waffles in Belgium as we only had the one, but I can’t imagine anything tasting more like heaven than that waffle.
Outside the calm space of Burg square, Bruges was filling up with tourists. They came on foot and bike. They came as a group on Segways. They came gliding up the wide, olive canal on sight-seeing barges. They came in horse drawn carriages – one after another: an endless loop of horses and carriages and tourists clippity-clopping down the ancient cobbles like time itself. They even came as a huge walking coffle of tourists, enslaved to the enthralling history of the city. Tess, having behaved herself impeccably for the morning, began to get agitated so it was time for us to leave.
On the way however, we had one last stop to make. A minute’s walk from the chaos and busyness of canal-side Bruge, we found ourselves in a peaceful little square. Inside, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: death, war, revolution, hunger were sculpted in metal, their faces twisted in torment, their skeletal horses entombed in bronze. They are said to represent the calamities that brought about the end of the world and fittingly, brought about the end of our visit to Bruges. Half a day is not enough time to see all the wonders that Bruge holds, and we left with the definite intention to come back again one day.
