Best Belgian Battlefields, People and Places To See: Sad Surrealist Magritte and Mad Van Gogh

Flag of Belgium

Problem
Driving across Belgium, leaving Dover and landing at Calais in France, or going to Ostend, you can route via Brussels, into Wallonia, as you cross France en route to Belgium or Belgium en route to France or Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and other countries, such a waste not to stop somewhere interesting en route. I have always wanted to see the Magritte Museum but seen to arrive before or after it opens, in a hurry to get somewhere else, or on the day it's closed.

Answer
"I've got a little list," as the Gilbert and Sullivan song says. I've compiled it alphabetically, by town. Plot the place and time, month and day, of your visit.

Charleroi - Rene Magritte (1898-1967)
1 Art Deco belfry
Unesco listed clock tower and belfry. I must admit I would not have realised it was art deco, but now they come to mention it. Looking at the photo in the tourist brochure I see that it has round-topped arches, and lots of parallel lines.
2 Rene Magritte paintings in Museum of Fine Arts
Rene's father was a tailor. The family had money problems and kept moving house. Moving house is nowadays known as one of life's stressful experiences.
The river Charleroi was where Magritte's mother, a dressmaker, drowned herself in 1912 when he was 14, found seventeen days later with her night-dress wrapped around her face. Three years later seventeen year old Magritte left for Brussels. But never forgot, as his paintings show.He knew de Chirico, was successful, panted murals, and lived to the age of 69.

Liege - Paul Delvaux (Painter) 1897-1994 (died age 96!)
Another Surrealist painter.
1 La Boverie, art museum, has Delvaux paintings.
2 Wine route. See www.liegetourisme.be
BE, of course, stands for Belgium.

Mons - Vincent Van Gogh (Painter)
1 Mons Memorial Museum
See uniforms, guns and drums of the military, plus exhibits on civilian life
2 Saint-Symphorien Military Cemetery
Among the little grey-white gravestones surrounded by green grass under the peaceful green trees are:
Two WWI gravestones:
First British soldier killed on the Western Front, Private John Parr, a teenager, in the Middlesex regiment; and nearby
Last British soldier killed on 11,11.1918, Private George Ellison.
See graves of British and German soldiers.
3 Mons Battlefield
Diary Date - November 2018 commemorations in Mons.
4 In nearby village of Cuesmes, see the brick-built Van Gogh House house where Van Gogh lived, now a museum. Van Gogh was a lay preacher, a would be minister to the miners from 1878, but was too pious for the practical miners, who called him 'the Christ of the coalminers' so he turned to painting and wrote to his brother Theo, "I felt my energy return".

Namur
1 Félicien Rops Museum (Musée provincial Félicien Rops

Tournai - Roger Van Der Weyden (painter)

(More later. I'm resting before New Year's Eve. I see that they have already celebrated with fireworks, first in tiny islands, then in Sydney, Australia. The Far East is next. Then Europe including England and Scotland, with Hogmanay. Then America and Canada.)

Story
For me the most memorable story, visually, is that of Magritte, who does the weirdest paintings, spooky. Yes, spooky. There's such a sad story behind his paintings. His mother committed suicide and was found with a cloth wrapped around her face. He was a young lad at the time. Clearly haunted by this, his pantings have a woman lying prone, deathly white, with a missing or covered face.

Some of the jollier famous Belgian-born notables do not have places commemorating them. But you may wish to cheer yourself up thinking of Sax who invented the Saxophone, the man who invented roller skates (adapted from ice skates which already existed), Georges Simenon (1903-1989) the prolific writer of the Inspector Maigret stories. (You have plenty of choice - 75 novels and 28 short stories if you want to read something by him on your trip. He went to live in Paris and the USA and died in Switzerland but received honours from Belgium).

Finally, take a tour around a brewery, stay in a format hotel, and for a bit of colourful fun, a delight for two senses, a gourmet hotel which tickles your tastebuds, then retire to your bedroom whereto can change the colour of your bedroom to your taste by flicking a light switch.

Tips
More Details from Wallonia tourist board which has a booklet on the area and the famous people and beers, wines, chocolate, cheese and other food.
www.belgium-tourism.co.uk
visitmons.co.uk

AUTHOR
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube. Like and share my posts.

Food From Flanders: Brussels, Bruges, Magritte, McCrae and more

I have been reading through a book on Flanders food which I picked up from the Flanders stand at the World Travel Market. Before throwing it away, I thought I'd check out interesting foods. Alas, I've now decided I must keep the large format book on my already cluttered kitchen shelves. But I've made a list of the places to visit and foods to try, for my own benefit, and you might find it interesting and useful, planning a trip to Belgium or just around your local supermarket.

Bruges in West Flanders

BRUGES

DRINK
Poperinge Hop Museum

FOOD SAVOURY
Meat
Kortrijkse bil
Salted veal.
I have heard of salt beef but not salted veal.

FOOD SWEET
Ypres Honey
Honey is known as liquid gold.

Chocolate
If you don't want to eat it, just buy it, Belgium has many chocolate shops.
Here's one:
Chocolatier Sukerbuyc make pralines from a 'secret' recipe.
Surely the word Suker is sugar. Is that deliberate?
ww.sukerbuyc.be

The Ten Best Bruges Restaurants
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurants-g188671-Bruges_West_Flanders_Province.html

SIGHTSEEING
If you feel the urge to walk off those calories, try the Bruges World Heritage City walk:
www.visitbruges.be

If the phrase 'In Flanders Fields' rings a bell, it comes from the WWI poet John McCrae, a Canadian physician (in the UK we would say doctor). In Canada you can see a memorial to him at his birthplace, Guelph. This photo is from Wikipedia which has a full article on the poet and details of the photograph. The poem uses the phrase three times, in the first line, (In Flanders Fields the poppies grow ... ) in the middle and at the end, the last three words. Plus, of course, the title.

• In Flanders Fields Museum
• www.inflandersfields.be

Poperinge Hop Museum
www.hopmuseum.be
visitbruges.be

BRUSSELS
"The capital of Europe"

DRINK

Brewery

www.brasseriedelasenne.be

FOOD

BISCUITS
S p e c u l o o s biscuits spiced biscuits are available from
Maison Dandy
www.maisondandoy.com
Wikipedia has a long article and pictures.

Speculaas (Dutch: Speculaas Dutch pronunciation: [speːkyˈlaːs], French: spéculoos, German: Spekulatius) is a type of spiced shortcrust biscuit, traditionally baked for consumption on or just before St Nicholas' feast in the Netherlands (December 5), Belgium (December 6), and around Christmas in the western and southern parts of Germany. Speculaas are thin, very crunchy, caramelized, slightly browned and, most significantly, have some image or figure (often from the traditional stories about St. Nicholas) stamped on the front side before baking; the back is flat.

Speculaas dough does not rise much. Dutch and Belgian versions are baked with light brown (sometimes beet) sugar and baking powder. German Spekulatius uses baker's ammonia as leavening agent. Indian, Indonesian, Mediterranean spices used in speculaas are cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom and white pepper were common in the 1400-1500's due to the Dutch East Indies spice trade. Family recipes may also include other small amounts of spices like anise, etc. Traditionally, speculaas were made from Frisian flour and spices. The name speculoos was coined for Belgian wheat flour cookies with hardly any spices. Today most Speculaas versions are made from white (wheat) flour, brown sugar, butter and spices. Some varieties use some almond flour and have slivered almonds embedded in the bottom. Belgian Speculoos varieties use much less or no spice.

CHOCOLATE

Most of the chocolate factory tours seem to be in Brussels, (with one in T o u r n a i)

http://www.visitbelgium.com/?page=chocolate-lovers.

SIGHTSEEING

Magritte Museum (Museum of Fine Arts)

www.museum-magritte-museum.be
One of the best museum websites I've seen. Shows clearly that the collection is huge, three floors of Magritte paintings. You can click on icons across the top of the website for each floor. Then clock on the pictures of groups of paintings in different areas of the map to make the pictures of the paintings bigger.

I read through the Wikipedia account of Magritte's life. Horrified to learn that his mother committed suicide and was found drowned, and that Magritte's pantings of people with missing faces could be attributed to the impact on him of this event. I was further unhappy to read that he and his family were involved in forging paintings and banknotes. But if you investigate the lives of famous people, just like infamous people, and ordinary people, you often find tragedies and questionable morals. If you are put off an artist or writer by the subject matter, its origins, or the lifestyle of the author, you would cease to enjoy art, literature and music. I hope I have not upset anybody by revealing this and drawing attention to it.

If you are still a keen fan of Magritte, the grave of Magritte and his wife is in a cemetery alongside the Brussels Cemetery. Although nothing spectacular about the gravestone, it could provide a point of interest on your travels.

The graves and battlefields of Flanders are also hardly jolly, but they mesmerise us a century later. So enjoy your search through history, and recover your equilibrium and jollity with Flanders food.

• Musical Instruments Museum, Brussels, Belgium www.mim.be
• Magritte Museum (Museum of Fine Arts) www.musee-magritte-museum.be
• Brasserie De La Senne (Brewery) www.brasseriedelasenne.be
• www.visitflanders.com/en/themes/belgian-beer

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, researcher, author and speaker.