{"id":231875,"date":"2025-05-09T02:26:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T02:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/books\/three-days-in-ghent-and-one-book\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T02:26:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T02:26:50","slug":"three-days-in-ghent-and-one-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=231875","title":{"rendered":"Three Days in Ghent and One Book"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"GhentI had two reasons to feel a little superstitious about our Ghent trip: firstly, we\u2019d planned to go in March 2020 days before lockdown at home \u2013 Belgium got there before us \u2013 and secondly the last time I travelled on Eurostar we both caught covid. H and I gathered our courage and set off on a glorious April Monday having packed for a summer break.\"Ghent<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning we ambled over to Patershol, the city\u2019s medieval heart, full of picturesque step-gabled buildings. Two streets in the old port on opposite sides of the quay are lined with grand houses erected by merchants grown rich on the city\u2019s grain trade. Those of us lucky enough to be on holiday soaked up the sun stopping for coffee at one of the area\u2019s many cafes.<\/p>\n

\"IssamSadly, much of what was on display in the city\u2019s contemporary art museum (S.M.A.K.<\/a>) left me unmoved but there\u2019s a poignant sculpture of a young refugee boy, Issam, vainly looking for his friends, accompanied by a voice counting the 51,000 child refugees missing in recent years, one by one. Commissioned by the Dutch Council for Refugees<\/a>, it\u2019s both arresting and very effective, but, oddly, the explanation of the piece didn\u2019t credit the artist. We walked back through a park packed with sunbathers, hardly believing it was still only April. A lovely day and hearing swifts as we strolled back to our hotel after supper made it even more so.\"Palmhouse\"Palmhouse<\/p>\n

I\u2019m always keen to visit botanical gardens and with the weather more midsummer than late spring it seemed a good choice for Wednesday morning. Our favourite bit was the palm house where we enjoyed the lightest of rain showers and a breeze thanks to the garden\u2019s clever irrigation system.<\/p>\n

\"Deeske\"DeeskeJust a stone\u2019s throw away from the gardens, Ghent\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts<\/a> was our next stop. It\u2019s currently home to a team of conservators working on Hubert<\/a> and Jan van Eyck<\/a>\u2018s vast, twelve-panelled Ghent Altarpiece<\/a> (also known as the Mystic Lamb) which began in 2012 and is due to complete in 2026. There\u2019s a glass panel through which you can watch them at work which I\u2019d find distinctly off-putting, but they seemed used to it. You can read about it here<\/a>. Of the permanent collection, Gustave Van de Woestijne<\/a>\u2018s Deeske was my favourite piece. Something about his subject\u2019s expression. By the time we\u2019d finished our (late) lunch the temperature had hit 27\u00b0, hot enough to keep us in our nice cool hotel room for a while.\"The\"The<\/p>\n

We\u2019d booked a slot to see the van Eyck altarpiece at St Bavo\u2019s Cathedral<\/a> on Thursday morning and were lucky enough to see the opening of the panels now done electronically but in the fifteenth century, when it was installed, there would have been a slow unveiling to an awestruck congregation. Amazing to think that the many layers of past restorations\u2019 paint had preserved such vivid splendour.<\/p>\n

\"Ghent\"GhentIn celebration of working people, May 1st is a public holiday in Belgium, as it is many countries. Ghent seemed much more crowded as a result and with temperatures soaring even higher than the day before we let coffee segue into an early lunch watching the Labour Day march pass for what felt like a half hour or more, a cheering turnout.<\/p>\n

It seemed appropriate after that to visit House of Alijn<\/a>, Ghent\u2019s museum of twentieth-century everyday life, housed in what was the children\u2019s hospice. It\u2019s full of artifacts, donated by citizens, arranged around significant days of the year or in life. An interesting collection that reminded me of Glasgow\u2019s People\u2019s Palace<\/a> which we visited on a similarly hot day a couple of years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Wisteria\"WisteriaWe headed home on Friday after a very enjoyable break. Just one regret: we forgot to revisit the fabulous wisteria we\u2019d stumbled upon on our way to Patershol on our first morning.
\"Cover\"Cover<\/p>\n

And the book? I finished Tim Lott\u2019s Now We Are Forgiven<\/em> on our last day. I\u2019ve learnt not to take books requiring much thought on the kind of holiday we have, and this one fit the bill nicely. It\u2019s the third instalment in a loose series following a set of friends through trials and tribulations which, this time, included the pandemic. Not one I\u2019m likely to remember much beyond next week, I\u2019m afraid, but if there\u2019s a fourth instalment, I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll read that, too.<\/p>\n

Back to books on Friday\u2026<\/p>\n

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I had two reasons to feel a little superstitious about our Ghent trip: firstly, we\u2019d planned to go in March 2020 days before lockdown at home \u2013 Belgium got there before us \u2013 and secondly the last time I travelled on Eurostar we both caught covid. H and I gathered our courage and set off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[24899,2268,3124,86222,86223,86224,86225,86226,86227,542],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-231875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-belgium","tag-book","tag-days","tag-ghent","tag-ghent-altarpiece","tag-gustave-van-de-woestijne","tag-house-of-alijin","tag-now-we-are-forgiven","tag-tim-lott","tag-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nThree Days in Ghent and One Book - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=231875\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Three Days in Ghent and One Book - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I had two reasons to feel a little superstitious about our Ghent trip: firstly, we\u2019d planned to go in March 2020 days before lockdown at home \u2013 Belgium got there before us \u2013 and secondly the last time I travelled on Eurostar we both caught covid. 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