Flanders   Again, the purpose of this trip was to just visit the Flemish part of Belgium, keeping with the Dutch theme. As a man I was speaking to in a café one evening said, Belgium is an artificial country. Each group within it considers itself its own community. Picture Belgium as an oval on a ten-o'clock to four-o'clock axis, then draw a horizontal line through it. Everything north of that line is Flemish, in other words, Dutch-speaking. This is about 60% of the population. Almost everything south is Walloon, or French-speaking, about 39%. On the eastern border is a small German-Belgian community, about 1% of the population.

When I was speaking about the situation of the Germans formerly living in the Czech Republic, I referred to the Belgian situation. There has always been a large amount of rivalry between the factions. For a while, bi-lingualism was tried. I've seen post offices on the Flemish and Walloon sides with writing in both languages. But in the 1960's there was a definitive split. Flemish or Walloon communities that were located in the wrong province had the provincial borders moved, for more language uniformity.

But there was an odd situation in this. Brussels, a historically Flemish city, totally surrounded by Flanders, had developed a French-speaking majority. This is reminiscent of the Canadian situation, of an English-speaking majority developing in Montréal, traditionally French. However, in Belgium, Brussels was officially declared a fourth, bilingual, region. Therefore, throughout Brussels, all street signs are now in two languages.

We went to four major Flemish cities, whose names I'll give in Dutch/Flemish: Antwerpen, Brussel, Gent, Brugge. You'd better believe that road signs everywhere in Flanders gave these names, and not any other versions, so one should get used to them when visiting Belgium. In each case I had arranged for a hotel to stay at right in the historic center, usually near the Grote Markt (Great Market), or Main Square.

A digression: One thing that has always amazed me is that the Spanish word for Flemish is flamenco. No dance seems more typically Spanish and non-northern. While checking this in the dictionary, I find that the Portuguese word for Flemish is flamengo, which was changed in English to flamingo. Again, how tropical a bird that is, and now non-northern. The dictionary explains that the "flam-" part of both words was associated with "flame", since the dance is so fiery, as is the color of the bird. I wonder if I buy that.

Antwerpen   In English we shorten it to Antwerp. Otherwise, pronounce it ONTverpeh. In all four cities, there were the Flemish cathedrals, guildhalls, and more buildings dating from the 1400's, 1500's and 1600's than you could shake a stick at, and all illuminated at night.

Antwerpen has an unusual tunnel, just for pedestrians and bikes, under the Schelde river, the Sint-Annatunnel / Saint Anna's Tunnel. It was built in the 1930's, and we had visited it last time, but I went again. You take an elevator or (wooden!) escalator, with or without your bike, and cross under the river. It's about 1/2 kilometer or 1/4 mile across.

And then there's what I call the urban legend. The origin of the name Antwerpen is well documented, and boring. However, in the 1600's a story developed about the name. It's in no way true, but it's the type of thing that's fun to believe. Hand (pronounced hont) means hand. Werpen (German werfen) means to throw. Antwerpen looks like it could mean hand-throwing, if, like Peter Pan, you really wished it to.

Thus the urban legend: a Roman soldier (why Roman? why a soldier?) named Brabo killed a giant (sound like David and Goliath?) and cut off his hand (why? and why just one?), then he threw it (where? WHY?). Does this story sound off-the-wall?

However, let me tell you this. This weird story resulted in the most beautiful fountain, the Brabofontein, in the middle of the Grote Markt in Antwerpen in front of the City Hall. The statue and fountain are huge, and shows Brabo, nude (why?) standing on one foot in his best baseball pitcher's form, with HAND in hand, throwing it. There are all sorts of other figures on the base, and water spurts from everywhere, including the HAND. What's particularly unusual, is that the fountain has no basin. All water splashes on the cobblestones of the square (I assume they have a sensible drainage system). It's really a sight of Antwerpen, or Handthrowing (??)

I was startled to find on the map that Hoboken is a suburb of Antwerpen. I always thought Hoboken, New Jersey, was an Indian word. And curiously, Hoboken is on the other side of the river, as in New Jersey. I went out of my way to find a tram with its sign labeled HOBOKEN.

Brussel   It's pronounced BRÜssel in Flemish; just shift the stress to brüSSEL and you have the French name, except, as often is the case, French finds a weird spelling, with an X and an ES ending: Bruxelles. Brussel's Grote Markt, better known in French as the Grand' Place, is also a UNESCO world heritage site.

In the US, cobblestones, especially the larger rectangular ones with rounded tops, are known as Belgian blocks. Pushing a wheelchair around here, I now know why!! Actually, in fairness, every city from Prague on has had its cobblestones, even somewhat smoother ones for sidewalks.

We have had mosselen/moules again and again in Flanders. Mussels are a Belgian specialty. Once we did order a whole bucket of them, as is the custom, but I've enjoyed them better when we had them baked with garlic butter, and the very best was when they were baked with cheese, plus garlic butter.

Lambic is a local specialty. It's young beer, and they say it's like drinking lemonade. I never got to have it, but I did have gueuze, which is several kinds of lambic blended; the youngest one causes additional fermentation in the bottle. It's very good. We also had kriek, which is lambic with fermented cherries added. It has a red color, is a bit sweet, and also good. Never underestimate Belgian beer; it’s outstanding.

Leaving Brussel, we dipped our toe into the Walloon area in order to go visit Manage, about 20 minutes south of Brussels, which is where Jeannine Bossert comes from. We had a pleasant hour in her town.

But on this drive, the language difference on the road really stood out. On the ring road in Brussels all signs were bilingual. As the motorway crossed into the Flemish area, the signs went Flemish, then French in the Walloon area. For instance, the Walloon city of Mons is known as Bergen in Flemish (both versions seem to have to do with a mountain), so the signs in Brussels were for Mons/Bergen, then later just Bergen, then just Mons. You have to have your language ear focused very sharply here, or you'll get lost.

Gent   It's pronounced KHENT in Flemish. English uses the old spelling, Ghent. Similar adventures there, except we came at the time of the Geentse Feesten, the Ghent Festival, which I later found out is one of the largest folk festivals in Europe.

Brugge   It is our last night in Brugge (BRÜkhe). English uses the French name, Bruges, but when driving here, don't look for anything but the name Brugge or you'll never find it. They are really serious about language here, and that's fine with me. Our hotel here is right on one of the main squares, called Burg, and we can see the illuminated façades from our window.

I've taken Bev along on most of the walks we've done in all these cities, but sometimes I can see that it's just going to be too far and too much, so she takes a nap or watches TV in the room while I go out.

She went along on the boat ride in Amsterdam, but today, I wanted to take the canal ride here. It's much more commercial, goes along fast, is filled with tourists, and a wheelchair just wasn't possible, so I went alone. I just re-saw from below what I had walked around the day before seeing, but I was glad to see that my ear was getting attuned to spoken Dutch/Flemish enough so that I could follow along in his remarks before he gave them again in English and French. Grant you, he wasn't talking rocket science, he was just naming churches and dates, but it was a pleasant language experience on our last day.

Leaving Belgium   As we were getting ready to leave Brugge on Wednesday, there were things happening on the main square in front of the hotel, including a marching band. Then there was a knock on the door, and the maid was passing out boxes of Belgian chocolates (200 grams, almost a half-pound). I asked her what was going on, and she said "It's the 21st of July!", like I should have known it was like saying in the US it was the 4th of July. Anyway it was a nice gesture, and we ate chocolates all the way to Southampton.

By the way if the name Brugge (instead of Bruges) seems totally new to some people, perhaps they are familiar with the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, which has major ferry connections with Britain. Zeebrugge is the port of Brugge, and simply means Sea-Brugge, or Brugge-on-the-Sea.

I'd like to reëmphasize the closeness of these places along the English Channel. Going from Brugge south to France (or even north to the Netherlands) takes an hour at the most. It's similar to going from New York to New Jersey or Connecticut, or from Chicago to either Indiana or Wisconsin. Granted that I didn't do any driving within cities, but going from Amsterdam, through the Netherlands and the several Belgium cities to get the Eurostar in France used just a half-tank of gas.

Rijsel   So what is Rijsel? Rijsel is Lille, in France. First of all, it's LEEL, not lil, or lily, which I've also heard. It is still known, rather vehemently I might add, as Rijsel in Dutch/Flemish. As I read it, Louis XIV conquered the biggest city in Flanders, Rijsel, in the 1600's, and immediately built a huge fortress there to pretect French rights. That northern tip of France is still referred to in French as Flandres, and many place names look Germanic. I understand from people I've spoken to that there are rudimentary efforts to spread Flemish language and culture, but France, and French, has conquered that part of Dutch-Land. It reminds one how High(land) German has conquered Plattdeutsch in Germany, although perhaps less so completely.

When in the Walloon area, signs pointed simply to Lille, but in the Flemish area, signs said Rijsel, although sometimes there was a yielding to saying both names: Rijsel (Lille).

You didn't need the sign saying "Bienvenue en France" (no border check) to tell you you were changing countries. All the signs stopped directing you to Rijsel and Parijs and were now to Lille and Paris. There were some, but minimally so, signs in Flemish/Dutch in French Flanders.

This was our first time in Lille, although I don't think there is a huge amount to see there, and I just got to see the area around the two railroad stations, but to my way of thinking, that itself was very revealing about modern France. I had read that the distance between Lille-Flandres, the station that continues to serve traditional rail routes, and Lille-Europe, which serves TGV services, including the Eurostar under the Channel, was only 600 meters. I left Bev in the car at Lille-Europe and hoofed it over to Lille-Flandres. It was a rather large charming, traditional Beaux-Arts railroad station, with a huge train shed, on a very typical French square, with hotels and cafés around it. Going back to the neighborhood of Lille-Europe, everything turned to glass and steel, including a huge shopping center and office complex, and the much newer Lille-Europe station was in that same style. It was very efficient, but all that glass and steel had absolutely no soul at all.

In Lille, the Eurostars come from either Paris or Brussels. Ours pulled in from Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid (the major station in Brussels is Brussels-South), and whisked us off to London/Waterloo International.

One final note: I've noticed that a western suburb of Rijsel/Lille is Armentières. Remember, a lot of World War One fighting was in this area, and coming out of that era was the song: Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?