Before leaving Damme, I was attracted by the green tunnel.

The green tunnel lasts for a few kilometers, and is really beautiful. But, I also miss a right turn due to this amazing scene. I thought that did not matter, but this thought made the 180 km distance from Damme to Namur became 200km… XD

At least, the good news is I can watch the beautiful scenes by the highway, including the large fan cluster of the windy power plant.

And, I can also watched the luxury cars on the highway, and chased after them. :p

There was also an Audi TT, but I could not follow it, although the speed meter showed 14x km/hr… XD

After checking in the hostel in Namur, I asked the staffs to suggest me a good place to fill up my starving stomach. The fist meal in Wallonia (Walloon region, the French region, the southern region) was in San Marino.

Well, Wallonia belonged to French region, and, in general, French language is more arrogant than others. So, the waiter and I spent a lot of time on discussing and explaining the menu, before I ordered a plate of steak.

The fries are just O.K. But, the bread is great – soft, sweet and yummy. You do not have to spread the butter, the natural wheat aroma and flavor are perfect. I even asked the waiter to give me more. (although I regretted as I saw the main dish… XD )

The main dish, the steak, with mushroom sauce. I think the sauce recipe is similar to the Burgundy stewed beef with red wine (勃根地式紅酒燉牛肉). I guess the red powders around the rim of plate are saffron. The steak is medium well, juicy and soft. Undoubtedly, very very delicious.

The dessert is Zabaglione. I think they change the traditional recipe, so the color is pure white, not light yellow. Yummy, but that’s too sweet and too much for me.

During the walking city tour of Bruges, the tour guide notified there is a small and cute village named “Damme” near Bruges. He recommended me to visit there as he knew I rented a car for traveling.

So, on the day leaving Bruges to Namur, I visited this small village. All the way to Damme is RIVER and TREE TREE TREE TREE… a lot of TREES… Monotonous, but very freshing and joyful while driving through these trees~

However, as I was getting close to Damme, there’re many travelers and cars heading into the village. The police officers even enforced traffic restrain. I was wondering why there is a crowd.

After I pulled my car in a place by the road and walked into the village center, I found there is a fair.

That’s why so many people are gathering in this small village. Records, CDs, paintings, and Booooooooks!

Every city has as least one church, and Damme is not the exception. The church in Damme is not so large. However, as sun lights shed into the church through glasses, you probably have the feeling of God or some other holy stuff. Anyway, quite solemn and stunningly beautiful.

In front of the church’s entrance, there is a large tower. The purpose of this tower is not so traceable, at least I asked the ticket seller, but he also knew nothing about the tower. The tower is made by bricks and stones, but most of the stairs are make by woods (only a few are made by stones).

The helix stairs look beautiful in the cooler tone color temperature.

After hundreds of stairs, this charming village and great country scenes are presented.

Next stop is Namur.

I waked up very early, and arrived Ghent around 9. In the early weekend morning, this city was still in her sweet sleep with her colorful decoration.

I parked the car outside the city and paced along the river and the streets.

Suddenly, after a turn, I found a guard decoration on an old wall. I wondered this old building is a church, but most churches in Belgium should be in Gothic style or Roman style in general. And the area of this building is so large, and rounded by a high wall. Besides, I could find a large garden through some cracks of the wall.

Some Belgium travelers were also interested in this building, and we decided to knock the wooden gate and hoped there would be someone can answer and tell us more about this building.

Fortunately, a lady answer the door, and tell us about the building. Well, in Dutch. The kindly travelers tried to explain to me, and I finally knew this building is not open to the public. However, there was a special activity in the afternoon (2 or 3 p.m., I am not so sure now), so it would open after a few hours.

That’s fine, I can go to visit the city first, and get back here later for this building and the special activity.

Basically, I walked along the water. Scenes at the banks are really great and lovely. Somehow this capital of East Flanders made me relate the Love River in Kaohsiung.

The first architecture caught my eyes is Belfry. Well, it looks like a church, but it’s not! It worked as a bell tower to report time and a warning watch tower (Well, like the Town Hall of Age of Empires?!).

You can have a 360 degree view from the top of Belfry. Such as Saint Bavo Cathedral.

and Saint-Nicholas Church.

The Ghent Festival likes a carnival and is a collection of concerts, displays, installation arts and performances. You can find one of them in any place of the city (most of them are around the town center region). The festival usually lasts for more than one week. There would be different performances at the same spot everyday, so you can watch a lot if you stay long enough.

Well, there was a concert at the plaza in from of Saint-Nicholas Church. It seems an activity of the festival!

You can take a seat, order a glass of beer, and enjoy the concert. Well, the cherry flavored one is good. :p

After a few encores, I left the concert and headed to the old building I found in the early morning.

As I walked into, I found it is not a building, I guessed it should be a residence house with a large garden. Oh~ the interior is really old and beautiful.

After I checked some information flyers and asked the guides, I found this is a military training center in the old ages. There is a small building, which was a dinning place in the old ages.

Many people sitting in the building or gathering at the entrance, my curiosity made me walk to the counter to get more information about the activity which would be going on here. The staffs said this is a concert, and I should have a ticket to get in. However, I do not have a ticket… As I think I should leave after take a glance of this old dinning building, a man (I guess he is the host of this concert) came to me and asked me where I came from. I thought he must be interested in why a Asian face with casual (not formal, at least) dressing showed up at such kind of occasion. Anyway, he was surprised that I came from Taiwan and accidentally get into this old arch. He gave me a ticket and invited me join this concert with the enthusiasm.

This concert is cello solo and cello-violin duet.

Lovely concert. I also bought a CD as a souvenir. Then, waked back the town center and threw myself back into the festival.

There were more and more people in the town center, and you can find more and more performances on streets.

They even created a beach on the street!

As walking and watching the performances, do not forget the historical archs. nearby.

Saint-Nicholas Church

The old post office

The ugliest building in Ghent. Actually, this is a church, but the tower at the right side is never finished. Although many generations of people in Ghent think it’s the ugliest building, it also becomes a landmark of Ghent.

Beautiful river bank.

You can also find charming decorations on streets.

The tour map indicated this is the most beautiful building of Ghent. Well, I just think it’s the most colorful. :p

Another place I was interested in is Forza Ritmica, which was an abbey in the old ages. Now, this place become a residence region, the expensive type.

Although I only stayed in Ghent for one day during the festival, I thought Ghent is an interesting and lovely city, which keeps the old buildings well, makes travelers easy to walk around for sight seeing, and also ensembles new style arts.

↓Minnewater，很漂亮的地方。

↓Bruges 有著北方威尼斯的稱號，水道、遊船穿梭其中。

↓這張沒什麼故事，只是覺得藍天白雲加上建築的顏色很漂亮而已。:Q

↓大清早一群跟著主人出來散步的狗兒們。

↓下面三張是高級住宅區，不過以前這一帶是監獄，而現在這些高級住宅就是將以前的監獄改建的。唔，台灣好有將舊市鎮區建築改建很成功的例子嗎？

↓當地人們的休閒活動。呃，把它想成大型的打彈珠遊戲就可以了 :Q

The watercourses

Bruges is much closer to the ocean hundreds of years ago than today, and it was a city of trading and water transporting importance. Today, you can still see the water-lock-bridge in this city.

The end of this watercourse was the palace of trading in the past. (Actually, this watercourse went deeper than today.)

The watercourses are not used for transportation today, but they do become beautiful scenes in this city. (Well, after the government cleans them up. Just like the Love River in Kaohsiung city.)

The Financial City

Not today, but Bruges had been a financial city. The financial activities was rising and flourishing from early 13th century. As a trading center, there were a lot of financial activities in Bruges. In 1309, the first “bourse” (stock exchanging center) was built in Bruges. The old brouse in Bruges is the “Fries Museum” today, and you can not be aware of money smell there anymore. (only fries ).

The name of this city

Well, there are many versions about how the name, Bruges, comes from, but I love the one coming up most.

Because this city was a financial and trading center, so people here had to defense invaders. They facilitate the watercourses and expand them as the city moat. Concerning both transportation convenience and defense, many gates and bridges were built. So this is a city of bridges, and people called it “Bruges” later on.

As an important city, it’s not surprising there were many races in this city. And, people of different races liked to gather in different places, so you can find some streets named by some races or countries, such as Spanjaardstraat.

Abbey and Priest

There are some abbeys in Bruges, just like other cities. But, surprisingly, there is a priest school in Bruges, named Grootseminarie. More surprisingly, there are only a few students in this school, and only one student graduated in 2009. There were about 50 graduate students half a century ago. Although they can drink beers in the breakfast and be close to God, I still think they should find some ways to pull more students in. :p

Lace

Belgium is famous by high quality lace. Although most lace products in the world are exported from China today, you can still find many local lace products in Belgium. At the age of Crusades, there were many poor widows. So they can only lived in a small house. Look, what a small, short and low door! The small door also inform us that the height of people in the past is lower than today.

Those widows lived in the northeast region of Bruges, and they started to sew and weave laces for money and keeping their daily lives. The high quality of laces made Bruges renowned for years. However, with the increase of personnel cost, most lace industries have moved to China or other Asia countries.

Beers

Belgium is also renowned for its beers. Bruges had many breweries in old age, but only one left today — De Halve Maan(the half moon). They provides tour covers introducing the brewery and the whole process of making beers.

They had produced many brands of beers, and here is the wall of beer cans.

In Belgium, drinking beers can be a serious thing, not like in Taiwan. Actually, each beer has its own glass, which has the label and a designated line. If you pour a bottle of beer correctly, the boundary of beer and froth would be at the designated line, and the top of froth is just at the fringe of the glass.

Buildings

There are a lot of old buildings in Bruges, and you can find the revolution of building styles here. For the following picture, the left building was built in 1644, you can find the stairs-design frontage, and the same as the middle building. However, the building in the right was built in 1776, the frontage became arc design.

The Gothic style buildings can be found in Bruges. Pointed arch, ribbed vault and flying buttress.

↓flying buttress (the left most tiny part XD)

↓ribbed vault

After hours flying (and eating and sleeping), the flight finally landed in BRU. Because I did not do any survey and planning, I just walked to the car renting counter to get one car to start my trip in Belgium.

Well, not the preceding two. XD

↓ This one, actually.

After hours driving, it is Bruges. My first impression of this old city is, “OMG, am I in a town of a video game?”. The buildings are so cute~~~

This old city keeps the old Gothic style architecture and modern public installation art works.

As an important sight spot, it’s not surprising there are a lot of carriages!!!

Well, most of streets in the old town area of Bruges are tiny and brick-built, and a mass of travelers there, so carriages are probably the best transportation in Bruges, besides of feet and bikes.




In addition, Bruges was very close to the ocean a long long time ago, so it was a city of water transporting importance, and there are many watercourses in this city. Rightly, the boat is another important transportation.

Next would be “the history of Bruges”…

Well, the most important things are the family members and friends.

Pu’er tea! I will be rich in the future!

Well, there must be some foods in a party…

We had a various sort of seafood, and this scallop with salmon covering is my favorite.

The white wine, but I forget the detail flavors and palates. The only thing I still remember is the seafood was not advantaged by this white. XD

Sausage and pork. BBQ!

The spicy of this Rhone red is good with the red meat.

You must have some chocolates while visiting Belgium.

So are other desserts.

Let’s enjoy the photos! (and sorry for my lazy and late)


3 Gentlemen in 3 Generations

In personal, I love this one most. The grandpa, the brother (son), and the grandson. The son was recording and looking at his father, who was looking at his grandson, who was looking at somewhere else. These “invisible” lines make this one interesting.
我最喜歡這一張，有父親、有弟弟(兒子)，還有孫子。兒子看著老子，老子看著孫子，孫子則不知聚焦何處。三道隱形的線條讓畫面變得十分有趣。

The Family

很自然。自然就是美 (L)

His grandson

Bite you~

記錄祖孫兩人的互動真的很有趣，咬來咬去的 XD

Ready to Ride?

Cha~

很動感，很溫馨的互動

[[SlideShow of the whole set]]

And their masters are also interesting, ask me for photos of dogs…