Today we bade farewell to Ypres and headed north east to Ghent. I was very keen to see Jan (and Hubert) van Eyck’s Lamb of God Altarpiece in St Bavo’s Cathedral, and the other three kindly joined me in my enthusiasm. James and I learned about this in our course on the Northern Renaissance last autumn, and it was incredible to visit it. We parked in an underground car park right in the centre of Bruges and walked to the cathedral. We could hear church bells ringing and Davie recognised it as Liebestraum No. 3 in A-flat major by Franz Liszt. I recognised the tune too and was very impressed that Davie knew who had composed it. I had booked tickets for the Cathedral tour; it was augmented reality which meant that the VR images were superimposed on the real background of the cathedral crypt, which I liked. It was very informative, about both the details and the history of the much stolen altarpiece, and I was so excited to be there. At the end of the tour we saw the actual altarpiece and it was bigger and brighter than I had anticipated, I loved it. It’s the most stolen artwork in history - by Napoleon and Hitler among others! Interestingly, one of the two panels which were stolen in 1934 has never been found, and the person who stole it is long dead. Before they died they implied that it is hidden in a public place; we were all speculating about where it might be.
After a light lunch we continued our journey onwards to Bruges.
Bruges is as lovely as ever and it has been our sunniest and warmest day of the holiday yet. We started our evening with drinks at De Vloamse Trine, discovered by Davie and Chanel in a little square just round the corner from our quaint b&b, and it was so pleasant that we ended up staying there for dinner. We had a fun evening of chat and a great deal of laughter, finishing with a night time walk around the Market Square.
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