Gravelines

Less than an hour-and-a-half drive just across the border lies the French Gravelines, a small town at the mouth of the river Aa. Completely surrounded by mighty gates, ramparts and canals, Gravelines still keeps rich memories of past.



We parked in the heart of the old town and walked along the river to the formerly fishing village of Petit-Fort-Philippe.






Because of the low tide the boats rested in soft and very smelly mud.

Strolling along the promenade I was most occupied by keeping Maarten away from the omnipresent dog poop.
Yuck!


The cold weather didn’t add much to the beach fun.
And as we continued along the dunes the Gravelines NPP with its grayish reactor domes slowly destroyed the peaceful view.
How depressing!



When we left the beach a rock monument and eroding concrete bunkers hidden in the dunes reminded us of the war past.





While rambling through the lush polder heading back to the fortresses the sky started to clear up and suddenly all seemed to become a completely different world.

More cheerful indeed!

Ruben Meeuwes

Today Maarten and I got stuck in traffic for 8 awful hours.
Even though I know it's not the best idea to attempt a trip to Amsterdam on a weekday, today we had a very good reason.

Welcome our youngest family member!

PS: I almost forgot to mention how Maarten charmingly cut his hair to look fancy on this important visit.
He did it all by himself!

Around Grand Monchaut

When you drive on highway through Hainaut, you see mainly the old mine buildings, coal transport infrastructures, slag heaps and abandoned grey workers quarters, in other words Hainaut’s faded heavy industry.

Needless to say that this province receives much less tourist attention than its neighbors.




But if you exit the highway and drive a little further in the countryside you might be pleasantly surprised.






The rural landscape just across the language border offers rolling hills and moist valleys meadows with abundant pastures, streams, woodlands and sleepy villages.


Here you can still enjoy the slow pace of life.

Leiestreekroute

Our first family bike ride went quite well. Not that I didn’t have confidence in Maarten’s biking ability rather I don’t really trust his road and traffic awareness.
Luckily all went just fine and we spent an agreeable car-free afternoon here in the village.


Only too bad Maarten got often annoyed by his playful dad who repeatedly challenged him to race even when the hot weather and biked kilometers were already noticeable in Maarten’s behavior.

“You two just don’t understand any humor!”

't Burreken

While Rob went on a spree in Amsterdam my usually easy task to amuse Maarten was kind of difficult today.
Perhaps because of the warmth we both were tired already in the morning.

I guess, I’ve never found the four-leaf clover before and when I was about to explain to Maarten how difficult it is to find one, he just picked one straight at his first try!
I wish his luck will never leave him!


Well, he was less successful with whistling on grass yet he made some progress before we finished our today’s hike.

Social Interpreter

Just started my first class today and must say I’m happy it’s behind me.
It must have been as hot as 30 °C in the classroom and since the course was far from interesting we all seemed to have quite a hard time to stay awake the whole day.

Add a freeway trip to Bruges and I wonder how many of us will show up again next time.


PS: Thanks for the nice Sunday afternoon, guys!
Het was gezellig!

The woods of Everbeek

Some of the nicest woods of East Flanders are around Everbeek.
The woodland of Trimpont Valley was covered in omnipresent blooming wild garlic flowers, a spectacle that made our little nature lover exclaim ‘I’ve never seen such a beautiful forest before!’


Rob fished out a part of a 19th century gravestone from a creek after having lunch on the remnants of a washed away stone bridge.
Yet Maarten was most happy with his find, a pheasant tail feather!



Minutes’ walk further this old cross grown in a knot of an oak tree reminded that someone died here in 1843.





Rob probably found our today’s trip a bit boring claiming that Maarten can use some more adventure.
That’s probably why he suggested a shortcut through a wet beech forest and along the grassy paths where stinging nettles and blackberry brambles were abundant.
Thanks to the adventure I got partly disorientated and having only a guidebook with a no detailed map we ended up walking down the road direction Wallonia.


That added a couple more really dull kilometers to our total.

't Burreken

Apparently Maarten is influenced by his děda! He wants to go to the forest to ‘shoot’ animals with his self made gun, a branch with two rubber bands stretched between the stumps.





Nevertheless, he comforts me, there will be no dead animals afterwards, since he is 'only pretending'.
What a relief!


To find ‘a forest’ nearby is a tricky matter but thanks to the internet and a pile of library books I usually succeed in finding some trees.

The nature reserve ‘t Burreken is not much of a big forest but a really nice nature spot.


After yesterday’s 11 km trail the shorter ‘Salamander route’ was probably the best choice for us, but still, Maarten was so enthusiastic chasing butterflies in lush meadows. He didn’t seem to be tired at all.




Mostly small deciduous woods, with incised creeks, meadows with cows and donkeys grazing side by side...
Sadly enough, despite it’s reserve status also this idyllic landscape suffers from illegal human activities like cutting of firewood or even baiting meat with poison to kill foxes.

Goudbergroute

The dark sky stayed full of heavy rainclouds. Only a few fanatic hikers and mountain bikers didn’t mind the muddy paths and drizzle.




Small country roads, cow paths, variety of forests and pretty views of the Flander’s probably most beautiful landscape reminds me of old masters’ paintings.




Omer Wattez, Schorisse-born author wrote praiseful of this region and he is probably the one who named it the "Flemisch Ardennes".

Along the path there are several information signs with Wattez's poems declaring his love for the nature.

Muziekbos

I don't have much affinity with the Mother’s Day.
Like everyone in an ex socialist country I grew up celebrating of Mezinárodní Den Žen (International Women's Day) on the 8th of March.
I have no idea if this is still observed in the Czech Republic but, as far as I remember, March 8th used to be celebrated quite exuberantly, especially in the workplace.
Once, encouraged by my Dutch friends, I sent a Mother’s Day card and my mom's reaction was obvious “Why is that?!”

People worry about the presents for their mother(-in-law)s and honestly, even now that I'm a mom, Mother’s Day still doesn’t mean much to me.

The modern mama’s ultimate Mother’s Day wish? Breakfast in bed and sleep late?
I don’t care to eat in bed but it was nice Maarten let us sleep till 8 this Sunday!

I found it a bit weird to receive the (for days discussed secret) present in the car but Maarten insisted.


When I opened the red package he started to recite this poem by heart which really touched me.
I knew they were discussing cars in the class these days, that’s why they made this cute candy box for mama’s car.
Chapeau bas, at Miss Geneviève creativity!
And surely enough Maarten was most interested in opening the box and ‘showing’ me the colorful candies.


Despite the long hike Maarten amused himself wonderfully all the way through the beautiful forested Maarkedal. What a big treat for me!

Right, no one would believe he was impressed by the picturesque villages and fabulous panoramic views.

Well, he wasn’t but also he seemed to find the blue and sweet smelling carpet of wild hyacinths fascinating.






But the variety of the trail, sometimes leading through dense lush vegetation and particularly the farm animals at pasture along the grassy path were the real source of excitement.

And what about the red balloon from Leontýnka?


Too bad he got stung by the hated stinging nettle again. No need to say he doesn’t care that this really is harmless compared to the poison oak we had to deal with in California.

Happy Mama's Day!

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain." - Vivian Greene

After unbelievable three weeks of sun the rain and cold has returned to Flanders.
The rain doesn't bother me much, mostly then, even though sometimes it comes at inconvenient times.
Like today we got rained on several different times.
How thoughtful to pack Maarten's raingear!


Despite of the heavy rain that caught us right at the beach Maarten insisted to build a sandcastle. Why would he otherwise carry his bucket and spade all the way?! One is obliged to fulfill his promise, so he built a sandcastle in a record time as we were rushing him away from the grey, windy and very wet beach.

As we all know the Belgian weather is notoriously changeable, therefore a beach-only trip can be a real bummer, especially in this time of the year.

I wasn’t very excited to go to the coast, not only because of the bad weather forecast.
I don't mean to be rude to anyone reading this, but for me I would just skip visiting the Belgian seaside. I wouldn't bother with such un urbanized area with beaches mostly surrounded by ugly high-rise apartment buildings.

Luckily there is some nature left, such as the sand dunes south of De Panne near the French-Belgian border.

In this very south-western part of Belgium, so called Westhoek, you can still enjoy a hike on the peaceful dunes in the nature reserve, and even see some wildlife.




I didn’t have much time to admire the blooming wild hyacinths in the adjacent Calmeynbos as the sky opened up again.
This time we were lucky being just yards from our car.