The Little Nose War and a Trip to St. Bavo's

The Little Nose War and a Trip to St. Bavo's

Center Panel

I got a phone call from my friend Michelle. I told her I was in Belgium.  The first question out of her mouth was, Did you go and see the Ghent Altarpiece again?  I bet I'm the only person to ask you that?!?  I was thinking the same thing but how could I weasel another trip Northward out of Stu?  His patience for my love of churches has to have some limit?  I'm to the point where I can barely identify which church was in what town and yet Stu can actually name them.  When we were in Florence about the best I could do was, Did you mean the white one by that grocery store?

A Walking Street

Ghent was another wealthy city in the North of Flanders, the Dutch speaking side of Belgium. Its main industry was trade and wool. It was also a busy port and in its time was larger than Paris or Moscow.  

On a Canal Bridge

 

A little piece of trivia, the treaty ending the War of 1812 was signed here.

Something we discovered in Belgium was the Cuberdon, a cone shaped jellybeanish candy filled with a soft jelly center.  They are ok but probably great if you grew up with them.  We bought a bag on the street and thought nothing of it.  Apparently, there was a serious incident over the candy called the Little Nose War as two vendors literally duked it out for customers on the rough cobblestones of Ghent. There was even a two week ban on the noses.  Serious stuff.  .  If you would like to read more about the shenanigans, click here . In the end, I'm not sure if I got the real noses….or the cheap imitations.

The Cuberdon

Ghent is a pretty Bourgeoise university town.  Unlike Bruges, it feels like a living city.  It would make the perfect backdrop for any period movie.  The architecture is charmingly Flemish, often with stepped roof edifices and varied brickwork of a wide range of dates and levels of decay.  If you are looking for a few slower -paced days in Europe, I would easily place Ghent on your shortlist. It is incredibly beautiful. There are plenty of terraces to enjoy coffee, beer and tallow-fried fries with mayo on a probably not sunny day on a square.  If you suffer from a short attention span, Bruges is also a very short trip North.

We had briefly been to Ghent before and had strolled around town for an afternoon.  We did the same this time but really came to Ghent for one thing; St. Bavo's Cathedral

Another Cool Old Building

Sint-Baafs Cathedral (charming name, huh?) was Gothically started around 1274.  It stands 89 meter tall and looks like a skyscraper from the edge of town. I say Gothically started because history never takes a break.   Remember Genesis in the Bible?  No, ask the President, it is his favorite book.  Well, the Cliffnotes version contains begat begat begat begat. Basically, Any old church may have started as a pagan site that then became consecrated and like tiramisu, added a layer of bodies under a chapel, then that burned down, was rebuilt, added more bodies because they forgot about the first layer and so on until you have what is in front of you. Saint Bavo's likely started out as a humble chapel around 950.  Three years before it was finished, the icon-bashing Calvinists almost destroyed the place.  Damn extremists.

Beautiful Old Buildings

The Church is an impressive sight. From the outside.  When I go into a church my first question is always, Would God live here?  (I'm convinced Protestant churches are really God's hospitals since they are so sterile.). If God occasionally visits St. Bavo's, he doesn't maintain the utilities.  The place is dark, damp, and what's the word I'm looking for…oh yeah, gloomy.  Ouch.  My dad used to complain (whine) about being around old and moldy things.  Well, yours truly has the same problem now and the doctors don't even know the cause.  Even the tapestries at the Louvre have gotten me sick.  This is the first church I have ever entered that has gotten me sick.  I get weak, wired, and sweaty.  As soon as I feel this way, I know I am on the clock.  Just about everything, including a Rubens, needs to be cleaned.  The varnish on everything in yellowed from candles and time.   Get the vibe?  I don't feel God in there.

Lovely Canal

The real magic happens at the front of the church behind the 4.50$ peep show curtain.  The first time I entered this room, I was too sick to enjoy the visit.  This time, I sorta came prepared. I had a huge scarf wrapped around my neck covering the back of my head and my mouth.  I had to look strange.  Since I was in a church, I couldn't wear a hat to protect my head.  Know what happens when you cover your mouth with a scarf indoors?  Your glasses fog up.  Timing my breaths in the dim light, I finally got the take my time and enjoy The Ghent Altarpiece or its proper name, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.  One of the reasons I love Art is that it doesn't happen in a vacuum.  It is a moment in time of thought, theology, and even progress.  This is considered the first major artwork painted in oil. The altarpiece was painted probably with the assistance of fine lenses.  If you have ever been in the presence of a Great Northern Gothic/Early Northern Renaissance masterpiece, your nose prevents you from getting your eyes close enough to the panel to see the brushstrokes.   Take a glance at Van Eyck's masterpiece, The Annunciation located in the National Gallery in DC. https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/van-eyck-the-annunciation.html .  The only reason that painting is in America is because it was smuggled out of the Heritage in Saint Petersburg, Russia during the Russian Revolution.  I'm not sure there is much in the States that compares to this painting for me.  How could man possibly create this without divine touch and inspiration? I've had this thought every time I have seen it.  Unlike The Annunciation, The Ghent Altarpiece is dimly lit and hangs several feet behind bulletproof glass.

Serious Detail

We walk into the dimly lit room to see the polyptych… CLOSED.

Let me step back a sec.  A polyptych is basically a many paneled devotional piece that opens to reveal devotional scenes within.  When closed, there are paintings on the reverse side of the panels.  These devotionals could be home-sized and opened for praying or cathedral-sized and opened---when it was time to open it (I have no idea when that is, mind you.). It was like Bruges all over again.  We come to Ghent to find the picture unviewable.  Is it ok to swear in church if you only use your inner voice?  Just then, the guard came around and opened the panels.  

How many things have you seen, or want to see, in this world that you just know are a moment in your life?  The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb falls into that category for me.  When most people see the Mona Lisa, they are totally bummed.  She is small and missing eyebrows.  She might even be a drag queen.  People are mean.  They talk.  The altarpiece, however, is massive and intricate.  You wish you could get close enough to see it up close.  To do it justice, you would need a cherrypicker.  It is just too tall. Christ is depicted as Pantocrator in Oriental regalia.  Pantocrator was a theme word of our trip.  The term first appeared in Greece and followed us throughout the trip.  It was unusual to see Christ as Pantocrator in Ghent. Pantocrator is a Eastern Christian theological concept of Christ as the all powerful judge Who is mild but stern.  I hope I am not boring you too much.  The depiction of the lamb of god at the center of the painting feels magical to me.  It delights me.  It makes me smile.  I feel happy.  I hope the moment would never end it is so wonderful.  After about 15 minutes, you realize it is time to go and you just don't want to leave.  Will you be back to see it again?  When?  Why have I been blessed with the gift to see this in person, let alone twice?  I don't know why I find it so special.  I guess that is how love works.  It's not about answers to questions.  In all the various scenes, my eye always comes back to the actual lamb of God at the center—sacrificial yet vibrant and peaceful.  I guess it's just love.  It is considered by many historians to be the most coveted and influential painting ever made.  That's quite the billing. 

Perdy Building

Ok, now for the cool part.  This altarpiece has quite the stories to tell.  Hitler wanted it as a centerpiece for his stolen art museum, it was taken by Napoleon, dismembered along the way, and stolen more than once during WWII.  Unfortunately, the last theft plays out like a movie that is too unbelievable to ever make it past a bad script.  While trying to recover a stolen panel, the only person who knew the location of the panel dropped dead of a heart attack at the train station during the ransom drop.  You can read more about it here. Fortunately, it is a short article.

If you would like to hear a 7 minute NPR piece on the painting, try this link  .

Bruges—Birthplace of Dr. Evil

Bruges—Birthplace of Dr. Evil

Bruges

If you have seen the final Austin Powers movie, it is revealed that Dr. Evil is from Bruges, Belgium.  Other than an obscure reference to a Flemish city, what is Bruges?  Bruges was a very wealthy trading center that housed possibly the first stock exchange in the world. At its apex, the city was larger and wealthier than contemporary, London.  In addition to facilitating global trade, the greater region was renowned for its textiles.  The best tapestries in the world were commissioned by royalty and the powerful and produced by artisans in the region.  These works required painstaking effort, labor, and skill to fabricate.  The trade was quite lucrative.  I also heard the wealthy at that time believed miasma was blocked by heavy tapestries stopping drafts leading to their increased demand.

post damage

Pre-Damage

Unfortunately, it didn't last.  Over time, the river silted up and ports became inaccessible.  The result was a town trapped in time like a fly in amber as the city's importance declined.  It became a playground for the pre- jet set crowd in the 19 century and then was invaded by chocolate and lace shops.  And more lace shops.  And oh look, another chocolate shop.  My colleagues in Holland said it was like an unsullied Amsterdam.  To me, it feels a little theme-parky and artificial.  We went back because my camera failed to record a single photo from my first visit.  The Van Eyck museum was also closed.  In addition, I had to return to the Basilica.  It was absolutely stunning with the coolest name ever for a church; The Holy Blood. Stu said, Oh don't be so literal, think heavenly blood or sacred blood, but nope, they translate it as The Holy Blood. On our first visit, there was a giant test tube on display containing 2 drops of Christ's blood. I got in line and said a prayer for my parents before sitting in awe and admiring the church.  Of course, you can roll your eyes at the thought of Christ's blood on a piece of cloth but it is also an opportunity for clarity to become present to something in your life, in my case, my deceased parents.  I take them everywhere and they never seem to mind when I invoke their memory, or is it my memory?  It is so confusing.

Holy Blood Stained Glass

Well, this trip was a little different.  In November, the sun ain't so bright that far North.  There was no blood on display (It wasn't a high holy day) and the church was dark.  I asked the desk if there was a coin box to light the altar.  Nope, the fading light was about as good as it was going to get.  I was a little disappointed, but the worst was yet to come.  The glorious altar was covered in scaffolding.  I asked the desk when the restoration would be completed.  It wasn't a restoration.  About six months prior, they came to work and found some of the painting on the ground.  The roof had leaked a damaged the painting.  Due to the dampness, they still were not able to begin the repairs.  I was absolutely sick to my stomach and a little teared up.  I am always present to the glory of God (or if you are an atheist, the ability of man) when I around breathtaking religious art.   The pilgrimage was a little disturbing.

Our next trip was to the previously closed Groeningemuseum.  It was closing in 5 minutes. Doh!  I figured we could at least walk around the streets of a Flemish city as the sun went down.  It turns out, the city isn't well lit in the dark.  It will either be a trip back to Bruges or forego the museum in the future.

Street View in Bruges

After all is said and done, it was still Bruges, or as the locals call it, Brugge.

Straight Outta Plovdiv

Straight Outta Plovdiv

Word.

 Well, it has been a few weeks since we went to Bulgaria, so it is about time I wrote about it.  It's not like it’s the only place I need to write about, but I like to share surprises. Some other places can wait. Travel is about surprises.  If don't get cultured upside-your-ass at least a few times on a trip, you are doing something wrong like clinging to tours.  If you have to go to the bathroom bad enough, believe me, they will understand the international sign language of dancing with a full bladder.  The question is: How much does that privilege cost here? 

Amphitheater Discovered from Mudslide

 

We were in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, for a few days and decided to see Plovdiv, a college town South of here.   We got two round trip tickets for the two-hour ride each-way for 20$.  Not bad.  

Gardens

Plovdiv is the second city of Bulgaria and is its culture capital.  It dates back to 6,000 BCE and is considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world.  Who knew? A lot of things happen in that time as can be seen on the wiki page: The city was originally a Thracian settlement^[4] and subsequently was invaded by Persians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Slavs, Rus people, Crusaders, and Turks.  Yeah it has stories to tell.  In case you were wondering, it is the sister city to Columbia, South Carolina as well as Thessaloniki, Greece.  Are you impressed with my book report yet?  Reading between the lines you can guess that it was a crossroads to be paved over, molded, treated with disdain and benevolence during that 8,000 years.  For simplicity, Bulgaria is North of Greece and adjacent to what was Yugoslavia.  Oddly, Bulgarians consider themselves Balkan, which seems odd.   Bulgaria is also located next to Romania.  Have you ever wondered how a Romance Language made it so far East?  Plovdiv is a good mini-primer.  In the 1970's a freak mudslide revealed a Roman 3 level theatre built in the time of Trajan. It holds 7,000 people and was restored to hold concerts.  Plovdiv was a useful crossroads for the Romans as can be demonstrated by ruins throughout the city.  There are also well-preserved Ottoman baths, mosques, and a seriously stunning old town. Fortunate for the locals, the Russians were not terribly interested in the local culture and left it alone.

Tomato and Cheese Salad

The city sounded interesting from the readings, but we really didn’t know much about it.  It was either this or a monastery three hours away.  Clearly, we had made the right choice. The chanting monks can wait. The old town was about a 20-minute walk from train station.  Everything we wanted to see was tightly compacted in the old part of the city.  This does not mean that the old town was tiny.  It was just condensed.  Aside from being all hills and poorly placed cobblestone potholes, the area was quite manageable.   Each turn and corner brought new architectural delights.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos in my favorite Orthodox church, The church St. Konstantin and Elena.  I usually stealthily break this rule, but the place just seemed to holy to violate. 

After walking through the old town, we crossed a main road to a hip neighborhood full of restaurants and gift shops.  Everything in Bulgaria is pretty affordable so the fear of splurging disappears.  Two all-out great dinners can be under 30$--with tip.  Everyone speaks enough English to make you feel at home or give you options.  The place that caught our eye had a waiting list.  We walked away and had coffee and decided to go back and make a reservation.  If we were willing to use 2, 55-gallon drums as tables almost in the street, we could eat now! Of course we want the street side view of the inner 'div.  A couple across from us were being mauled by their bulldogs that couldn't be picked up, hugged, and kissed enough.  I love pets at restaurants.  Nobody died as they entertained their children on the patio across the street.  I got the Tarator, a cold soup of cucumbers, garlic, yogurt and dill.  Stu got the Shopska salad.  It is a common salad of chopped cucumbers, onions, peppers, and tomatoes with white cheese. We also opted for a cheese and sausage plate. By the time the meal arrived, I was already full but it was MEATBALL TIME! The main attraction were meatballs called Kyufte made of minced pork and spices.  Yes, meatballs are a thing in Bulgaria.  (A similar version was served to us in Croatia and Bosnia.). If meatballs are the start attraction,  lyutenitza steals the show. It is purée of tomatoes, red peppers, and carrots.  They make it for the Winter but it seldom lasts into the Fall.  Imagine a kind of ketchup that you want to eat by the cup.  Perhaps there is a more appealing way to describe it? It reminds us of ajvar.  I know you are thinking, What the hell is that?  Just stop by our house.  I am certain we will be making some in a few weeks.  If you fail to stop by, even better, I will be the one licking the bowl with tomato sauce in my beard.

Mmmmm....

Plovdiv is really just another European theme park waiting to be over-discovered.  Bulgaria is one of the cheapest countries in Europe and this place is an affordable hidden treasure.  You would expect to see some rough edges, but there really aren't any.  This place is ready for the world stage.  Due to its size, however, it might quickly become a victim of its own success. I would suggest getting there before it becomes to inundated with tourism, like the rest of Europe. 

Old Town

Near Flanders Field

Near Flanders Field

Stu at the Entrance Museum

Today we took at happy trip to Ypres, Belgium, home of the In Flanders Field Museum.  Of course, there are countless exhibits dedicated to atrocities of war but there is also a surreal dark comedy of WTF?

Great for Machine Gun Protection

By the end of the 19^th Century, Belgium was becoming a prosperous agricultural and growing industrial society.  Years of peace and stability, along with being a non-aligned "neutral nation" serve up just what the nation needed to thrive. 

French Target Practice

A year before The War, Belgium decided, hey since we are starting to be a real nation in power and wealth, maybe we should have a professional modest military as well!  What timing you say?  Well, non/néé.  By the time the war started, the locals were a rag-tag group of volunteers wearing stuff they owned that made them, um feel, professional?  There were no uniforms and training or weapons whereas the other world powers each had well-disciplined and trained fighting machines.  The Brits owned the water and the Germans the land.  Inversely, the Brits hadn't flexed their nautical might on land and the Germans the sea. The French and Russians also had their strengths be it manpower or Brie.

This thing was going to be over by Christmas.  Everyone agreed.  I know, you heard this before.  But really, everyone was going to party like it was 1865 by Christmas!  Walking around the exhibits, the uniforms and equipment really didn't reflect reality.  The French wore dashing light blue uniforms—the better to line them up in your sights.  Eventually the French decided on something less dapper as the body counts rose.  The Scottish, meanwhile, came in kilts, of course.  Imagine the scene.  Icy, frozen, sloshy mud and rocks grinding against your bare legs in the rain.  We were told the ice and mud sliced the back's of soldiers legs. Now let's add some hungry rats.  Listening to a biography of the kilt years ago, the men thought the pageantry immediately regretful.  Other troops didn't necessarily fare much better. many men wore breastplates, chainmail, and damsel-in-distress chivalry wear.  Many had helmet adorned with eagle and flourishes. At the onset of the war, people were dressed like peasants from different eras in a play and equipped with wares probably at home during an anachronistic recreation from the American Civil War---that other war that was over in less than six months.

If the soldiers were not dressed for success, advancements in weapons had made progress.  WMD's baby.  You now had weapons that could mow down men in numbers in the bloodiest ways ever seen.  And it was up close.  Many of the new and efficient weapons worked best at close range.  All that gore in 4K hi-def and smellovision. No one ever imagined war could look like this.   I can't imagine anyone went home normal.  In a BBC documentary, a relative was told his great-grandfather stood up when they said duck and was killed.  Turns out it was likely true.  His job had an extremely high casualty rate which required him to visually identify enemy positions.  He was not only a target but got the see the gore up close and in-person. In all likelihood, he probably just decided that day that if he didn’t duck, it could all go away. Some gave all but certainly all gave more than any ever imagined.

New Weapons

Part of a band or the Infantry?

 At the start of the war, blimps were used but were not very effective.  Eventually someone figured out that Morse code could be used to identify positions.  Being easy targets for the enemy, the pilots were held in high regard.  Another new addition to war was chemical weapons.  Contrary to popular thought, they were not particularly effective at killing people, but they did serve another purpose, terror.  Imagine you are in a muddy ditch with all levels of humanity from the limbless to the lifeless being eaten by rats and you start to see and smell gas wafting over the battlefield like death seeking souls.  I'm quite sure it would be easy to die from fear.  You lose your nerve, make noise, or move in the wrong direction.  There was also an indignation about using gas.  How dare they gas us like animals!  The lack of decency—until the allies started using mustard gas and then it was all ok and better.

Get out your map boys and girls and find Belgium.  It is the funny-shaped country North of France. Notice how it sits between Germany and France.  Before Germany became unified, The part of Germany containing Berlin, was part of the kingdom of Prussia.  The wars and weddings of European nations and leaders led to strange bedfellows that all exploded when the war started.  Belgium and all its chocolate, lace, and vrites, sits between Northern Germany and France. What could possibly go wrong with two superpowers between ya?  The worst of it played out in this part of Flanders.  It is wide-open farmland very close to Great Britain and France.  All I can imagine is mud, bodies, shrapnel, and trees lacking any and all branches.  And some stacked rocks that look like buildings if you squint enough.  Battles were victorious at high costs only to lose ground the next day.  The land was a sea of disturbed earth—the perfect environment for a sea of red poppies to grow in the fields.  These fields, however, were not undeveloped tracts of land.  Imagine you come back to about where your family farm had stood for generations and find nothing—no family, no houses, nor villages.  The fields are a disturbing muddy garden of corpses and bombs.  The land could not be worked for 10 years while bombs were cleared and to this day, bodies are still uncovered when tilled.  One memorial shop said they would continue to find them throughout our lifetime.

 

Early Gas Mark Ironically Influenced by a Plague Mask

Our host matter-of-factly mentioned that Ypres has a ceremony every night at 8pm to remember the Great War.  Since we were close, we drove back to the village. It wasn't quite what we expected.  I love being slammed by the unexpected. There were several hundred people there including hundreds of children for the laying of wreaths to the 100's of thousands of dead. It looks like this every night. Every. Night.  The tribute in perpetuity is covered in the names of dead from various regiments.  I started to notice a sick pattern to the names.  These names are all Sikh.  These names are all from New Zealand.  Clusters of humanity neatly arranged in memoriam. 

I clutched the poppy I had taken off my jacket and tried to take it all in.  All this for what? Even the soldiers didn't want to fight.  Regiments were rotated to prevent the enemy from making friends with enemies meters away.  A truce of multilingual Christmas carols on Christmas Night lead to an impromptu football match in the middle of hell. Within days, troops were rotated to end the fraternization.

After the laying of the wreathes, the speaker said, "Go forth and tell everyone we gave our future so you could have your present!"

Have we learned anything?