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As my sister does not read my blog .......
this is included to show the Beguinage at its most beguiling. |
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| Fell in love with the boy but ..... |
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...also loved the face of his companion
even though her head is too big for her body! |
Having
a sister to stay is a Full Time Job but also an opportunity for great
fun. We did lots; going out for coffee and patisseries to two
separate friends, one of whom had only recently moved so giving
us the chance to see a super apartment in Academiestraat nearby; out for lovely meals; to shops; to the Saturday market for plants
and flowers; to hear Luc Vanlaere and his harps again [gentle,
interesting, innovative music in Oud Sint Jan]; to my English group
to hear an English friend speak on the subject of his dissertation
currently under-way; to whit, the deliberate Ijzer flooding in the
Autumn of 1914 which temporarily halted the German advance. We
sampled the uplifting April show of daffodils at the Beguinage; took
a friend to breakfast at Blackbird and spent a most productive time
at Bomberna at Maldegem for extra pots and compost ready for the
imminent arrival of Spring. En route home from the latter, to a fab
architectural salvage place where, temporarily ignoring post-Brexit poverty, I
bought a pair of charming statues of a boy and girl for the terrace.
AND later in the week, a Louis Reckelbus, bought but unwanted by a
friend at an auction. Fortunate indeed that I shall spend no euros
during April when I visit my daughter and her family in California. A
period of restraint is called for, both impulse and fiscal restraint!!
En
route home from the station after H’s departure on Wednesday
morning I wandered into the Markt, busy with the weekly mixed market but
with a difference. In front of the Belfort were two fire engines and
many helmeted firemen plus two men in a raised basket on the ladder
extending from one of the engines. Spectators galore gazed upwards as
did I but nothing seemed changed or happening. I eventually
discovered that one huge crenellation had fallen intact from high up,
narrowly missing the friet van that is usually there. It must have
weighed an extraordinary amount but the gods were kind and no one was
hurt. I immediately assumed the cub reporter role [is this a redundant expression now?]and busily
photographed events/objects for this blog such is the importance I
place on this timeless record!!
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| Voila! |
To the
funeral of a dear friend and member of my English group, near Antwerp
on Friday. My first visit but not my last; we saw only a relative
glimpse of the splendid centre of Antwerp but we left from the glorious and
stately central station where we had time to sit and toast our
late friend’s memory. I was told that Delacenserie was the
architect of Antwerp Centraal and it is a magnificent structure for a
memorial to a fine architect. In tribute to the saying that one can
take the girl out of teaching but not the teaching out of the girl, I
have gone on to look up a little about the background of the
Centraal. Really interesting stuff! It was indeed Louis Delacenserie
who was the architect between 1895 and 1905 and on the 1905 opening,
it was regarded as the finest example of railway architecture
anywhere. In 2014 it was confirmed as the most beautiful station in
the world by the British/U.S. magazine,
Mashable. In the preceding
hundred years it had had a chequered history; the Centraal suffered
huge damage to the train hall from V2 rockets during WW2 though it
was subsequently considered to be safe, structurally. However it was
closed as unsafe on January 31st 1986 for restoration
between March and September of that year when it safely re-opened. In 1998 reconstruction
began, to enable the through passage of high speed trains, and was completed
in 2007. In 2011 Antwerpen Centraal was awarded the Grand Prix in
the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage. Until now I had thought of St Pancras, in London, as the most beautiful railway station I had seen but now, it is easily surpassed by the majesty of Antwerp!
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| Antwerpen Centraal in all its glory. |
