Exploring Ghent: Visiting the Spiritual Homeland of Flemish Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Ghent: Visiting the Spiritual Homeland of Flemish Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The suburbs and most of the countryside around Brussels, Belgium are Flemish while downtown Brussels is French. 

Belgium is a bilingual country:  Flemish is a variant of Dutch spoken in the suburbs and countryside while French is mostly spoken in Brussels and in Wallonia in southern Belgium, a coal mining area.

On one of my trips to Belgium, my buddy Eileen and I went to the spiritual capital of Flemish Belgium in the town of Ghent.

Like Brouges (Belgium), Ghent has many old brick buildings, pretty canals, lace shops, and churches that would be major attractions in smaller towns.

We ate at a restaurant that also served as a bakery and served as a kosher food products store called Bloch on Veldstraat.  The waitress, who spoke English, told us that the restaurant has been there for almost 100 years.

We ordered Shepherd’s Pie.  It was made with a browned crust of mashed potatoes and savory beef and onion filling.

We visited St. Baaf’s Cathedral downtown and admired the Mystic Lamb Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck.  Flanders is Catholic like French Belgium and has much artwork to admire in its churches.

The English guide to the Cathedral is enthusiastically translated as follows:

“Thank the Lord for the profusion of beauty in your life” and I did just that as we headed back to Brussels on the train. 

(In 2018, I still want Google to develop Google Art Project to make museum collections overseas and in the US available to Americans, who may not have the money or physical ability to visit these collections.)

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie

Exploring Bruges: Visiting Belgium's Venice with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Bruges: Visiting Belgium’s Venice with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved being able to take the train to Brussels, Belgium from the Gare du Nord in Paris (France) to visit my Detroit buddy Eileen, who worked for the European Union after finishing her master’s degree at the London School of Economics.

Eileen took a vacation day, so we could visit the picture-perfect town of Bruges.  Bruges is full of canals with swans.  We rolled Florence around in her baby stroller looking for restaurants and just enjoying being outside for the day.

Bruges is a beautiful, distant suburb of Brussels for upper management, who could do consulting work at home.

We eventually decided on a restaurant.  Eileen and I both had a savory, tomato soup and Italian omelets called fritattas.  We were feeling pretty good, because we drank Duvel (Flemish for ‘Devil’) and Geuze wheat beers with our garlic toast and omelets.

We walked around Bruges for another three hours.  The Eglise Nôtre had a beautiful Madonna and Child sculpture in it by Michelangelo that was a surprise find for us.

The swans on the canals enchanted me as did the lace makers on the curving, cobbled streets, who set up shop next to chocolate stores.  I felt like I was walking through a wonderland.

We ate Leonidas chocolates on the way home and counted swans on the canals on the way out of town.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Ruth Paget Selfie