Friday I showed Amy n Mish around Gent. We were a bit more lucky with the weather, though it did POUR down in the evening (I think there was a shortage of cats and dogs so we got, like, rhinocerous rain). Anyway, here's some stuff we saw/did in Gent;
We climbed the Belfry tower of Gent. You can kinda see at the very top of the tower there is a dragon? (If you click the photo you can see the larger version). The dragon is the guardian of Gent. The current one up there is gold and weighs around 450 kg. The previous one is shown in the photo at the top of this post :)
A Belfry tower is a Flemish and French peculiarity apparently. They were used for spotting danger/fire etc in the city, as well as storing certain precious documents. Namely, the documents conferring rights to citizens (granted by the King) were locked away in chests such as the one above, to keep them safe. The idea was that if the documents were lost or damaged, the citizens effectively lost their rights. Hence they protected them pretty fiercely. They learnt the hard way that storing them too high up the tower meant they couldn't be rescued fast enough if there was a fire, so they were kept in a 'secrecy room' often under a false floor in the base level. Fascinating!
View from the top of the tower
This is an old Carillon keyboard. A Carillon was used to alert citizens to fires, storms, wars and such, as well as celebratory events. Its like a keyboard which rings bells in the tower, by playing levers and foot pedals. For me it is the ultimate instrument - a keyboard that rings massive bronze bells in a tower! In Medieval times, a ringing of bells from the lowest note to the highest note indicated that an attack had taken place. When we were in the tower, the carillonneur played the song 'Memory'. It was neat, and beats being attacked for sure!
We wandered around Gent and saw all the sights, and even tried a bit of Gent candy. This is a traditional candy shop called Temmerman. There's Hamish inside, stalking candy.
These are Cuberdons, well-known in Gent. They are little cones of raspberry-filled yummyness. The inside is liquidy and tastes a bit like candyfloss.
In the evening, we bought a couple of beers and sat down by the canal on Graslei to relax for a bit (we had done a LOT of walking). Amy n Mish got to try the beer Delirium Tremens (you know, the one with the pink elephants).
Hamish also discovered my favourite, Orval (its a trappist beer; those skillful, wonderful monks).
Friday I showed Amy n Mish around Gent. We were a bit more lucky with the weather, though it did POUR down in the evening (I think there was a shortage of cats and dogs so we got, like, rhinocerous rain). Anyway, here's some stuff we saw/did in Gent;
We climbed the Belfry tower of Gent. You can kinda see at the very top of the tower there is a dragon? (If you click the photo you can see the larger version). The dragon is the guardian of Gent. The current one up there is gold and weighs around 450 kg. The previous one is shown in the photo at the top of this post :)
A Belfry tower is a Flemish and French peculiarity apparently. They were used for spotting danger/fire etc in the city, as well as storing certain precious documents. Namely, the documents conferring rights to citizens (granted by the King) were locked away in chests such as the one above, to keep them safe. The idea was that if the documents were lost or damaged, the citizens effectively lost their rights. Hence they protected them pretty fiercely. They learnt the hard way that storing them too high up the tower meant they couldn't be rescued fast enough if there was a fire, so they were kept in a 'secrecy room' often under a false floor in the base level. Fascinating!
View from the top of the tower
This is an old Carillon keyboard. A Carillon was used to alert citizens to fires, storms, wars and such, as well as celebratory events. Its like a keyboard which rings bells in the tower, by playing levers and foot pedals. For me it is the ultimate instrument - a keyboard that rings massive bronze bells in a tower! In Medieval times, a ringing of bells from the lowest note to the highest note indicated that an attack had taken place. When we were in the tower, the carillonneur played the song 'Memory'. It was neat, and beats being attacked for sure!
We wandered around Gent and saw all the sights, and even tried a bit of Gent candy. This is a traditional candy shop called Temmerman. There's Hamish inside, stalking candy.
These are Cuberdons, well-known in Gent. They are little cones of raspberry-filled yummyness. The inside is liquidy and tastes a bit like candyfloss.
In the evening, we bought a couple of beers and sat down by the canal on Graslei to relax for a bit (we had done a LOT of walking). Amy n Mish got to try the beer Delirium Tremens (you know, the one with the pink elephants).
Hamish also discovered my favourite, Orval (its a trappist beer; those skillful, wonderful monks).
No comments:
Post a Comment