Ascension Day in Ghent

Ghent is an university town with 50,000 students  This is its library

love the painted wall

guild houses

lots of cute cafes  They love English puns. One was called Miss Sippy's with a picture of a black lady

cool window

and bench

and bridges

love the gabled roofs

on our boat trip

too bad there is a crane

a mix of modern and old

liked the light patterns

Ghent in the golden hour This is being converted to a large cans for my wall

Back of St. Basil  We didn't have time to see Van Eck's Adoration of the Lamb contained wherein

baby coots  I will replace this soon with a better shot  Despite being all black as adults, the babies have orange afros

my fan Hugo 

After lunch we walked a mile along the stream to catch a boat tour that brought us into Ghent a very pretty city, my favorite. It was Ascension Day, 40 days after Easter, and a National holiday so lots of little stores were closed though church fairs were all around and it was very crowded  This was one big difference between Belgium and the Netherlands: Catholic holidays definitely would not be celebrated.in the latter.  Another difference is the language: Flemish is written. mainly the same but pronounced differently. More French sounding and none of that awful throat clearing as in Van Gogh.  Southern Belgium, Wallonia, is French Speaking. Further east is a German section. The city is really called 'Gent' pronounced as Hent (different than what the Dutch would call it) Americans refer to it as its French name as they do Bruges.

We wanted a beer sitting in a square but mission impossible given the holiday crowd.  A lone man had some extra chairs at his table. Could we use them? He then offered to buy me a beer. As my friend was with me, I said, does she get a beer too? Of course but he proceeded to ignore her and zero in on me. I was just such a marvelous woman. Am I alone? Obviously my friend is with me, so no. He meant if I had a man. Not with me, back in the US. He didn't think that counted though when my friend left briefly, he asked if we were a lesbian couple. No, married to a MAN. So I still attract men despite my hair pictured badly needing a haircut (since corrected) Always amazes me.

Bought some fancy chocolates by the piece that I finally finished just yesterday.  So good!!!!

Ate along the canal at De Witte Leeuw pictured in the far left of my pretty photo. Great shrimp. Lots of walking until 8:30.  (still very light) Taxis brought us back to the barge driving scary fast.