Great Bruges Marathon October 14th

Temperatures of around 23 degrees greeted the day of the Marathon and the sun shone throughout. As I wandered among the good-natured crowds thronging the streets around the Burg and Markt, I

mused on the stroke of genius that had initiated this latest idea to bring in even more tourists, that life blood of the city. I have never seen so many tourists in Brugge before; the place was heaving, terraces on cafes and restaurants were full and those shops open were much-visited. I noticed that there seemed quite a number of bags marked De Witte Pelikaan, the Christmas shop open all year round. Perhaps, some had more than one purpose during the day!

  

 Jan Van Eyckplein during the early afternoon

The happy expectation of the morning's spectators and tourists gave way to unashamed self-indulgence by the afternoon though that remark may not have applied necessarily to the Marathon runners! Diners sitting on the terraces in Jan Van Eyckplein contentedly sipping their beers, applauded as runners, walkers and even the exhausted limpers, passed slowly up Academiestraat from the Spiegelrei. On Vlamingstraat, spectators and shoppers mingled in care-free manner on the road, parting in response to the frantic ‘Red Sea’ waving of the organisers as yet more runners appeared. One tiny girl on a bike with stabilisers took advantage of a momentary space in the road to pedal adventurously off alone. It was some little time before the parents noticed and went into frantic action. She just kept pedalling with all the unconcern of a 2/3 year old suddenly let off the leash and given space to explore. She never looked back and only her bonnet ribbons waved towards the parents.

Here's the Golden Boy, Alexander Diaz Rodriguez,
in an earlier triumph

But a Great Day Out was not the absolutely prime point of the inaugural Great Bruges Marathon; that was to initiate and promote an internationally-acclaimed race, possibly more successful than the Brussels and Antwerp marathons. Locals would claim that Sunday’s event did exactly that. Over 6,000 runners and hikers from 43 countries entered and local hero, Alexander Diaz Rodriguez, won as expected in 2 hours 25 minutes. In fact 2,500 took part in the full marathon and the rest in the half marathon which encircled the historic centre while the full marathon, dauntingly to the observer, added the long trip to the coast and back. Another local boy, Koen Naert, won the half marathon in 1 hour and five minutes while the women winners were Soetkin Demey in the full race, in 3 hours five minutes and Hilda Poelaert in the half marathon in 1 hour 33 minutes. Astonishingly there were 800 runners from Brugge itself. So the title of the GREAT Bruges Marathon seems to have been accurate after all! A coup for the organisers too. 



 Soetkin Demery from Brussels: another favourite who won

I never cease to wonder at, and applaud, the almost seamless cavalcade of events in Brugge. It seems astonishing to this quiet observer, that such a wide variety of happenings occur, often free for the fortunate residents and casual visitors, and add great variety and interest to life.

Before the excitement of the Marathon I went to the opening of an exhibition by Jacqy duVal in the wonderful Jerusalemkerk, my favourite church in Brugge about which I have written before. The place offers a rare and atmospheric arena for any display but the geometrically abstract paintings seemed, unexpectedly, to feel at home, resembling beacons in the historical ambience. Jacqy duVal is the joint pseudonym for Jacqueline Dehond and Koenraad Uttendaele, both graduates of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and with long experience in architectural, design and art projects. Their special paint, high precision and vibrant colours enhance the geometric intensity in their work, contributing to an harmonious whole. I particularly loved one example of their art, displayed in the semi-darkness of the crypt. It is a simple, luminous almost-round, nearly oval, shape which, in some mysterious way, touches the sub-conscious.
 

 

Pieter Pourbus et al

Sibylla Sambetha
Hans Memling
1480

To underline my credentials as a Culture Vulture, to the Groeninge Museum on Friday 13^th October [ouch!] to see Pieter Pourbus en de Vergeten Meesters on its first day. Proved to be an incredibly interesting exhibition and one with a grand ambition; to change the perception of the world towards Bruggean art in the sixteenth century. Following the previous century of internationally-acclaimed Flemish Primitives like beloved Hans Memling, Jan Van Eyck and Gerard David, when Flemish art was at the cultural peak in Western Europe in terms of reputation and achievement,  there was little art of note in Flanders, and in Brugge in particular, during the 16^th century to see.

There are several reasons for the virtual omission of Flemish art from international note and the subsequent contemporary re-discovery of Pourbus and the other forgotten masters. The sixteenth century witnessed the economic decline of Bruges and the fading of its long Golden Age. The degradation of Brugean access to the sea, its consequent decline in trade with the attendant loss of banking supremacy and the inevitable shift of economic supremacy to Antwerp, all set in the 

 The Money Changer and His Wife
by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1541

turbulent context of religious iconoclasm and political upheaval in the Netherlands, hugely reduced the status and importance of Bruges in the sixteenth century. In fact, real poverty among the many, existed alongside continuing wealth among aristocrats and merchants; the overall cultural and economic decline was slow and artists still prospered from commissions for at least half a century longer. Art production continued; artists grew and prospered; those who had geld, still bought art. Humanism was the predominant philosophy among the well-to-do and helped to consolidate the perceived social and emotional value of producing and owning, art in living The Good Life.

Self-portrait by Pieter 1 Claeissens 1560
pictured, not as an artist, but as a good,
solid citizen of Brugge

It was in this climate that Pieter Pourbus and the family Claeissens prospered but it has taken art scholarship during the last twenty years to discover the extent and quality of the work produced, particularly by the Claeissens family. In fact, Lancelot Blondeel, father-in-law of Pourbus and his mentor, first embraced the innovations of Renaissance art, fitting  them into the Bruges’ tradition together with Pourbus. After Pourbus’s death, Pieter 11,[son of the original Pieter Claeissens] and Antonius Claeissens became the pre-eminent painters in Brugge while brother Gillis was famous for his superb portraits.

This exhibition contains an extensive display of sixteenth century Flemish art and a thrilling narrative identifying the Pourbus and Claeissens families as exceptional artistic dynasties. Definitely worth a second visit for me!  



Detail, showing the lovely face
the Madonna from the triptych below









 Van Belle-Triptych: Madonna of the Seven Sorrows
Pieter Pourbus 1556

 

I was particularly moved by this triptych; the donors had lost their five

year old son who is pictured behind his father, Joos Van Belle, in the left panel. But, especially thrilling to anyone interested in historical continuity, the preparatory drawing and two draft designs for the medallions have survived. The preparatory drawing is a vidimus, a contract signed by both patron and artist and is contained in an

endearingly scruffy little notebook included in the exhibition.

Above, Portrait of a 56 Year Old Man
by Frans 11 Pourbus [grandson of Pieter]
1591
 

As a footnote really, I must record my amazement at the real 'forgotten' nature of some of the Claeissens family. No body of work was attributed to Pieter 1 before 2000. His highly gifted son, Gillis, despite being a painter of renown in his day, remained in comparative obscurity until 2007 when The Triptych of Claeys van de Kerehove in Budapest was attributed to him.  In 2015 research definitively showed that the anonymous Monogrammist G/EC was Gillis leading to his identification as the artist of  Portrait of Joris van Brakele . Subsequent to that discovery, there is now an oeuvre of fine portraits attributed to Gillis Egidius Claeissens.[1536-1605] Below his

 Portrait of an Unknown Nobleman in Armour      

 

and a tiny view [far below owing to the unstable nature of the technical aspect of this blog!] of Joris van Brakele, the 2015 definitive portrait attribution to Gillis Claeissens which has been pivotal in enabling
the identification of a large oeuvre of his work.









The Elegance of Swans

 

Having somehow lost this week’s blog which may indeed be lurking somewhere, unacknowledged, in an anonymous file but beyond present recall, I have decided that I won’t re-write it. Too onerous so, apart from mentioning that I attended two concerts on Saturday and Sunday, each totally unlike the other, one of Celtic and Sephardic folk music; the second, for piano and oboe of music by Schumann, Brahms and Poulenc, I shall write no more save to say how differently marvellous each was; how gifted the performers were; and how gratified the audience.

Swanning around at the Beguinage. 

I have instead decided to write about the swans on Brugge’s canals, something I have intended to do for ages. They are one of the impossible-to-miss sights of the town and add greatly to its beauty and appeal. They are irresistibly photogenic and superficially friendly; that is to say, one might assume they are friendly but the best advice is to steer clear of contact and indulge in aesthetic appreciation only! Swans-on-water supply one of the most stereotypical views of Brugge but never fail to charm and delight. I know that I derive an enormous amount of pleasure from just seeing them, sometimes unexpectedly; mostly in the usual places: on the canal at the Ezelpoort and at the Beguinage which is probably the Swan HQ here.

The beheading of Pieter Lanchals in the Markt, Brugge
in 1488.
Copper engraving in 1736 by N.Heylbrouck

I  have tried to find the definitive explanation for their presence here, but the legend has small variations. It is certainly connected to the Emperor Maximilian of Austria who had suzerainty over Brugge in the fifteenth century. His adored wife, Mary of Burgundy, was here in March 1482, to ride and to indulge in her passion for falconry when she fell from her horse, broke her neck, and died. Maximilian did not feel the same about Brugge after that trauma and at some later point, decided to raise the taxes in the town; there may have been a connection between the two events. The townspeople were somewhat intransigent about his demands which were considered excessive, and when they resisted he sent his bailiff and minister, Sir Pieter Lanchals to enforce the new regime; Lanchals and the other noblemen with him were promptly imprisoned and when Maximilian himself came to Brugge, the rebellious citizens imprisoned him too in the Craenenburg in the Markt, [now the site of the Grand Cafe Craenenburg] Maximilian was no doubt permitted to watch the torture and decapitation of Lanchals and his fellow nobles, in the Markt. With ultimate disrespect, Lanchals’ head was put on a spike and displayed at the Gentpoort for communal abuse. Maximilian was forced to restore various privileges and reduce the taxes for the aggrieved citizenry, before fleeing back to Austria, quietly plotting his revenge.


 Mary of Burgundy, remembered in Bruggge

Maximilian returned with a large army which proceeded to plunder the city, and he ordered that swans must be kept on the canals of Brugge in perpetuity, in memory of his good friend and tax collector, Pieter Lanchals, who had had swans pictured on his escutcheon to commemorate his name, Lanchals, which meant Long Neck. The threat from Maximilian for non-compliance was that he would flood the town, letting in the North Sea to drown the place. And so, five hundred plus years later, the swans’ descendants swim serenely on, delighting all who live here and those who visit. Pieter did not die in vain; indeed, his legacy lives on, both on the canals and in commerce.

For the swan theme remains popular in Brugge as in the Bistro 't Zwaantje on Gentpoortvest and the Hotel die Swaene,
Steenhouwersdijk, as well as in motifs on private buildings such as the stately procession of swans swimming across the façade of the house [above] , in Carmersstraat.


Hotel die Swaene

Vacant Possession

 July 1955, age 19.

Although written in Brugge, not a blog about Brugge this week. Instead I have been concerned about one of my two sisters who moved this week to a home where her family hopes that the presence of some of her furniture; some of her bed linen; some of her possessions will help to persuade her that she is really home, on the farm. She has been demanding to go home for five weeks now but the hospital said that she could not possibly do that; her back is broken; her mind is gone but the sweetness remains if one looks beyond the drugged weariness. On my wall, near the front door, are three portraits of the three of us sisters, taken when we were 21, 19 and 15. I am amazed now, but certain, that not one of us had any notion of what a stunning trio we made; no idea at all. Two of us were pretty; one of us was beautiful and we either never noticed or took it all entirely for granted. Just as we took our communal July birthday as normal. That's how things were.



 Here we are, sharing the same birthday.
July 28th, 1941
The pretty little girl in the frilled dress with The
Important Bow in her hair, is This Sister

  She was very pretty only ever interested in marrying a farmer, which she did. A love match, I think, and until recently, the capacious farmhouse set in the large farm, which she entered as a bride of 24, has been her world. That, and her much-loved family of four children and eventually, five grand-children. When her husband died too young leaving her with a family of four teenagers, she turned round the farm’s fortunes while continuing to manage the mundane housekeeping like baking bread every two or three days, among the myriad other jobs, and founded and ran a successful B & B. I always loved her bread, given freely to visitors from a kitchen often full of the heady smell of newly-baked loaves. She gave up her singing when she married; without apparent regret, it must be said, though she had a lovely voice, loved singing in a choir and had won solo competitions. She always told me not to stand near her in church at family events like weddings, because I would spoil her singing, making her out of tune. Unkind, but true as it happens. But then, there is nothing quite like the brutal honesty of sisters! 

There is, of course, none of that sisterly honesty now; she cannot remember anything much. Some language remains, and her descent into dementia has been long and slow; she lost, long ago, the sudden rages against the insidious dying of the light. Concentration, memory and focus have gone; her instant reply to any question is, ‘I don’t know’, an effortlessly easy answer which doesn’t demand any shadow of exertion. There is no obvious desire to please, nor indeed, to displease, yet the old gentleness endures. She can still hold short, simple conversations but soon after eating, can ask again for food, not remembering the recent meal. She does nothing all day; the TV may be on but she doesn’t watch it. Her endless, pointless, docile waiting, punctuated by the occasional visit, seems untroubling to her; she is oblivious to her condition and does not even notice that she can no longer perform simple tasks like making a cup of tea. She is just content to sit and await the next minute; the next hour; the arrival of food and drinks and perhaps, the next stranger. In fact, waiting is the wrong verb; waiting implies an object, event, an arrival, a person for whom one waits; my sister waits for no one; she just sits. Without memory, life is almost meaningless but without consciousness, the pointlessness of existence goes unnoticed.

Earlier this year, I went to stay for a few days at her farm, and one of her sons had the brilliant idea of taking us back to see the little semi-detached a few miles away, where we had grown up. The house looked pretty much the same though the garden was quite different but I didn’t mind; I was delighted to see it still standing among the numerous other houses in a tarmacked suburbia unrecognisable from the rutted country lane of eighty years before. A rare survivor. Even better, nearby was a little country park containing the original wood where we had played so often in our childhood. All our games, our competitions, our gang meetings, our quiet walks and noisy play; our tree-climbing, our finding birds’ nests, and sometimes, eggs, our conker-gathering and black-berrying, had been centred there in what had then seemed an expansive, almost magical, wonderland but which now was clearly seen to be  modest in size. Her son dragged the wheelchair over the humps to the part nearest to our old house and we sat her on a convenient log and I supported her back because she was afraid of falling. The space seemed familiar to her and the delight for both of us was infectious. For me, so many distant memories and a few names; for her, an intangible happiness and a total and rare relaxation that stayed for a long time. All the usual anxiety vanished from her face and she, suddenly care-free, looked ten years younger. I recounted a few memories but we couldn’t share them. But we did share the bonhomie, the sudden joy, the positivity of a happy surprise. The feelings bound us together and we smiled in idiotic delight at each other.

I hear now, from her family, that she is delighted with the new home because it is so much better than the hospital which she hated. She knows she isn't back at the farm but, at least, for now, is contented with her room, some familiar furniture and linen, the rural view from the window, and the frequent family visits. The drug regime is to be reduced and, we hope, a safe sort of peace descend. Her family grieves for the self she has lost and her many years of hardly living, but she doesn't know what life used to be. To be warm, safe, fed is enough. That, and to feel loved.

Gin and other tonics.

 NOT the 17th century fragment I nearly bought
[see below] but similar.

Busy time hence a rather late post. My sister Heather and her friend, Barbara, to stay and somehow, what with the talking, wandelen along canals and cobbled streets, and eating, not to mention the nightly gin-for-some on the terrace, [apparently All The Rage in Britain, especially with the fashionable Fevertree tonic], time has slid past. Friends from Germany and Holland also visited and the sun obligingly shone. We didn’t make KookEet alas but we did go to the Saturday market where chickens and tiny rabbits plus turkeys with purple heads all took the attention. I bought flowers and plants and we enjoyed the lines of plant stalls especially, Barbara being a Proper Gardener and sister Heather a Very Good Gardener and Plants-woman. I love my little terrace but do treat it as an outside room to be displayed at its best whenever possible, though many plant names escape me, so neither a proper gardener nor a plants-woman!

 

We were taken to see a lovely huge garden, formerly the little family farm, created and tended by its devoted owners. It wasn’t pretty in the conventional English way with wide herbaceous borders but featured many interesting trees, and domed and newly-shaven clumps of buxus with areas of gorgeous grasses and a stunning and huge display of enormous hortensia. This extended and sheltered estate is peaceful and danced with slanting shadows from trees under the sun the day we were there. I particularly loved a huge Italian mask set near a boundary which hid a seat on the reverse; surprising and whimsical. The whole is clearly the result of an overwhelming passion for the place but it is also a stage, shared with the extended family who do none of the creative work but who are allowed to present various family events there. Brugge never fails to surprise!

Breakfast at Blackbird, lunch at de Belegde Boterham and late lunch on Sunday at the Belgian Pigeon House all contributed to a lovely holiday feeling. The Memlings in Oud Sint Jan retained their 

 14th century cellar at the Belgian Pigeon House

 Antique Chinese games box

uniquely special, haunting quality but perhaps the greatest fun was had at the Zandfeest, so-called, though as ‘t Zand closely resembles a war zone nine months after the start of the renewal [end date is envisaged for June 2018] the Rommelmarkt was chiefly on the large area where the Beurshalle was before demolition plus the usual long stretch behind the Concertgebouw towards the station. It was crowded and some, like my German boys, take the whole flea market so seriously as to arrive at around 6.00 a.m. in search perhaps of yet more Jesus statues to add to the hundred or so already in residence in their Cologne flat! We were more sedate but nonetheless devoted to The Pursuit and I am still in mourning for the perfect little antique Chinese game [not Mah Jong] I didn’t buy for 86 euros, and the gorgeous remnant of a tiny early seventeenth century ceramic lid beautifully decorated for which I couldn't quite pay the necessary 50 euros. Oh the ache of a significant loss of nerve!


 The true devotee, Zandfeesting at 6.00 a.m.

 

 Paul's garden, freshly shaven.

 

Autoloze Zondag

 Game small child tackling skills training course
on the Burg.

Too much rain in the past week yet Autoloze Zondag dawned cool but sunny. As I walked to the Crowne Plaza hotel this morning at around 6.45, stalls were being erected on the Burg ready for activities from 10.00 and, no doubt, other sites were in similar early preparation. The idea of lots of fun and games, and interesting things to see and do during a day when cars are forbidden in the streets of the Egg, is somehow really joyful and different. It marks the whole day as very particular, as the Italians would say; distinctive, significant, exceptional. And in the case of Brugge, great fun!

 Marec, acknowledging the honour in slightly
insouciant style!

And so it has proved. Hundreds if not thousands, thronging the streets of Brugge and a holiday atmosphere everywhere. I went first to the Feestelijke Opening in the entrance courtyard to the Biekorf Theatrezaal, the Library Theatre. It was crowded partly because citizens are interested in what is happening in their town and also because, after the ceremony there was free beer, soft drinks and coffee! I do like the notion of designating a space, like this courtyard, with a different honorary name associated with culture, each year. Until today, it had been Jacqueline Compernolleplein then, from around 11.00 this morning, it has been christened Marec-plein in honour of a Bruggean cartoonist whose shop is nearby in Sint Jakobstraat. There were speeches, to set the context, to thank Jacqueline and present her with a gift and to confer the honour on Marec whose good humour amused everyone throughout! There were families there with babies and toddlers and lots of older townspeople, all interested, greeting each other with much kissing and hand shaking. It was yet another example of the community spirit engendered here through a variety of activities and events during the year.

I was determined to scour the Rommelmarket which seemed to run the length of Langestraat, to try to find a friend, absent from our Wednesday coffee mornings for ages, whose husband has been summarily dispatched to work in Sydney! She and a friend normally have a stall on any Rommelmarkt going in Brugge. I found her and her well-stocked tables and we caught up. He is already there, their house is sold and they finally leave Brugge in early January; she, meantime, is trying to be positive about an unwanted three year move from Europe to the Antipodes and is planning to initiate or join antique/bric-a-brac/Rommelmarkt activities somewhere in Sydney after they find a house to buy.

Future Ringo Starrs?

En route to and from her stall I soaked up the happy atmosphere and watched children trying to play drums in Sint Jakobstraat, master a bicycle course for toddlers in the Burg, having a jolly go on art through ‘cycling’ on a stall where the adult in charge tipped paints into a sort of wheel and the cycle attached, when powered by a small person, mixed, and produced, glorious effects. The whole of Sint Jakobsstraat was given over to stalls on ‘culture’ covering chiefly art and music. The Markt was full of tourists and townspeople  , walking through, sitting at cafe tables in the sun, watching a performance on the usual makeshift stage which one so often sees here, appearing, mushroom-like overnight for a performance the next day. I didn’t understand what the chat show on the stage was really about but it involved dedicated cyclists and a noisy question master in a back-facing baseball cap!! The atmosphere was upbeat. I have to add that this year's was a particularly impressive programme. I failed to make it to the Concertgebouw which was open for tours, musical performances and family workshops. I missed the 5km run through the historic centre; the wheelchair obstacle course, the mussels festival and concert on the Vismarkt and tango in Simon Stevinplein. In fact I walked past the Vismarkt at around 19.00 and the mussels were just finishing but a robust women-only act on the stage was in full swing to the crowded arena.

 Ecstatic cycling artist can be seen, in pink bow.

 A higher tone set in the entrance to
the Conservatoire.

 En route at 19.00 to Minderbroedersstraat next to Astridpark,
 I chanced upon this very relaxed plastic cow outside
a super cheese shop!

Open Monumentdag

 Failed fantasy.

First, a little coda to the last blog. My optimistic impression of what was happening in St Jansplein, vis-a-vis the possible replacement of tarmac with cobblestones was way out. See the photograph to the left. SO disappointing to have my romantic fantasy rejected!

But romantic fantasies re-surfaced with the annual Monumentdag which actually refers to the weekend. Saturday I visited 16 and17 Spinolarei, nearby, where huge renovations have been taking place for at least a year or more. It does seem more fun to visit renovations sites rather than perfectly formed, restored, lavishly accoutred ‘Big Houses’ though these have their place. A serious drawback for me is that I cannot understand the official guide book which is an impressive publication, full of information on the history of each property. This wonderful guide makes me want, more than anything else, to understand written Dutch.

Another drawback is, of course, my lack of understanding of spoken Dutch. Nonetheless, in No 16 Spinolarei, I picked up a few points and the kind guide added occasional English remarks to help. I just loved No 16, a building from 1280 when it had a wooden front construction with brick at the back. It fronts the canal and the whole house [as well as No 17] will be rather posh apartments in 2018. One, on the first floor will be magnificent for there are mediaeval flourishes evident and above that first
floor, the beams and mediaeval construction still remains, patched by liberal amounts of modern wood replacement. There are Flemish
equivalents to the beautiful Crown Posts on the top floor

 The tiny faces at the base of each arch, are modern replacements
 the originals having been stolen long ago, as were
the fireplaces.

of my former house in Kent and my interest in early mediaeval construction stirred..

Number 17 enthralled much less; although only slightly younger than No. 16, the evidence felt
eighteenth century and indeed, both houses had been 'joined' into one big house in the eighteenth century apparently. The crowning glory was the communal cellars, with arches, mediaeval bricks and walls and space enough for a huge amount of merchandise in earlier times. Around 750 years after the original construction, it seems stunning that modern apartments can be carved and polished from these grand decaying monuments.

Sunday, to find the atelier of Pol Standaerts on Witteleertouwerstraat. An impressive 17^th century building, relatively undistinguished from the outside but interesting within. I found it difficult, without Dutch, to pick up much information about the building and beautiful garden area itself, but of the resident firm of Pol Standaerts, there was much to see and learn. Founded in the mid seventeenth century in its present premises, Pol Standaerts produces a bewildering and highly decorative variety of plaster casts, statuettes, stylised embellishments for high ceilings, like the work it has done over the centuries for the Grand Hotel Casselburgh.  Alfred Gilbert, designer of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, took his design for the winged messenger, to Brugge, to Standaerts, to have it realised. I was particularly interested just to discover a plasterwork atelier in Brugge like that of the Atelier Lorenzi in Paris from where I recently bought my much-loved L’Inconnue de la Seine, now smiling serenely down from my study wall.

 Atelier Pol Standaerts

My second Sunday visit was to Kraanplein 4, a building I often pass and had noticed under extensive renovation for perhaps the last year. This Huis de Cluuse was built around 1270-90, a fact only fairly recently established after dendrochronology had been done on the wealth of beams. Hitherto, a fifteenth century date for building had been assumed. In fact, in comparison to some of the buildings on offer during this Open Monumentdag, it is relatively small and modest but its wealth of old brick and ancient wood make it special. There is a spiral wooden staircase which I had assumed must be contemporary but which is in fact, nineteenth century. I loved it that the guide was able to show us three paintings, one by Memling, [1430-1495] one by Pourbus [1523-1584] and one other, which shows Kraanplein 4 in the miniature view of the background. The present owner intends to live there and start a small coffee house/bistro there within an unbelievable three weeks! Further contemporary investigation is obviously warranted! 

Sunday afternoon to Hoogstraat 28, the only upmarket property which I chose, the other four being all houses in the process of renovation. I had often seen a gorgeous little pagoda above the Groenerei and wished I could go inside it and that was the reason for choosing this particular house on Hoogstraat. It is beautiful, neo-classical with a perfect symmetry in design, large mirrors, ancestral portraits, ornate and gilded plasterwork, a beautifully-balanced staircase, large pillars with gilded collars and views over the classical garden to die for. It was built between 1821 and 1826 in the Empire style, though, mysteriously to me, the windows and doors date from 1910. The garden itself was a joy with miniature hedges of box clipped with military precision, more curves and again, more symmetry with the focus on the afore-mentioned gem of a canal-side pagoda. Heaven. I did not enjoy the visit however beyond the considerable aesthetic pleasure as the guide was interminable, none of the resident family was present, only three ground-floor salons and the garden were open. Of course, if one spoke Dutch, it would have been more bearable but there was a distinct feeling of ‘de haut en bas’ and the complete lack of private possessions and ornaments suggested a slight nervousness about what the sans-culottes might get up to! But the pagoda was perfect

 Love the discreet, tasselled rope.
BUT a perfect staircase