Heatwave holiday - Part 2

Things were definitely heating up as our holiday week progressed: the weather forecast for Tuesday 5 September spoke of full-on sunshine and temperatures exceeding 30°C. 

At this time of year, at least, we were guaranteed slightly cooler nights, but sleeping was still a sweat fest in spite of the fact that we kept the French windows open all night.

Consulting our weather app in the morning, we learned that our best bet would be a trip to the seaside, where a mild sea breeze would halt the mercury in its tracks just under the dreaded 30°C mark. So, that was our destination for the day sorted!

The nearest seaside resort to our holiday cottage is De Panne. Lying at the western end of Belgium's straight 67 kilometres long coastline, it is almost literally a stone's throw from the border with France.

Much head scratching ensued when our Satnav made us drive on minor country lanes which were definitely not taking us into the direction of the main road to the coast. In fact, we were dumbfounded when we suddenly found ourselves in France! But our Satnav seemed to be knowing her way around and eventually we made it to De Panne, and the free car park we have been using for many years. Formerly free car park, I should add, as a Pay and Display machine had materialized in our absence. 

Having parked, paid and displayed, we walked around the corner and took the tram for a couple of stops until we were within easy access of the promenade. 

In spite of the perfect weather conditions, both promenade and beach weren't exactly jam-packed, which would have been quite a different story in the Summer holidays or during sunny weekends. In fact, you might be forgiven for thinking that we had the place completely to ourselves, the odd paddling gull notwithstanding!

The tide was out, leaving a wide expanse of beach we had to traverse until the shoreline with its gently lapping waves was reached.

Swiftly removing our shoes, we followed the gulls' example and dipped our toes into the salty water. Then, slowly but surely the tide started turning so that soon the water reached beyond our ankles. Jos was obliged to roll up his trouser legs, while I tucked my tiered skirt into my knickers!  

And so we walked on, with the waves following each other in swift succession and increasing force, until we were parallel with a break in the row of unappealing apartment buildings lining the promenade. The bane, unfortunately, of most of Belgium's coastal resorts.

We walked back to the promenade over the rippled wet sand, followed by a final stretch of sun-kissed golden sand untouched by the tide which dusted our feet as if sprinkled with flour. 

Sitting on a bench, we tried to brush off most of it, which proved a nearly impossible task: we could feel it squishing between our toes for the rest of the day.

De Panne's brightly striped deckchairs and windbreakers and old-fashioned bathing huts are reminiscent of a Victorian seaside postcard.  Although I have taken countless photographs of these over the years, I couldn't resist trudging up to them for some more, with the warm fine sand slopping over the tops of my Cloudsteppers. Jos was far more sensible and waited for my return on a shady bench.

It was well past midday by now and our stomachs were ready for some sustenance. However, it seems that we'd picked an awkward time for our visit as our favourite restaurant along with many others happened to be closed on a Tuesday.

We finally managed to grab a table on the terrace of Le Beaulieu, which turned out to be a cut above  some of the other eateries lining the Promenade. Our waiter - like most of the workforce here - was French, with just a limited grasp of Flemish, resulting in a minor mix-up in the order of the Dutch people sitting at the table next to ours.

After lunch, we strolled along the promenade. Then, while Jos once again rested his feet in the shade, I briefly ventured a bit further afield to admire some of the coastal architecture from yesteryear which is still hanging on for dear life among the concrete jungle.

However, it was far too hot to trawl the streets of the Dumont quarter, a gem of architectural heritage built between the late 19th and early 20th Century which has been protected since 1995. Next time, perhaps ...

There was no escaping the heat on Wednesday 6 September, as the mercury now refused to descend from its lofty +30°C height.

My floaty chambray midi skirt, which had already more than proved its worth in Shropshire, came out to play again. I paired it with a charity shopped floral top by King Louie, accessorized with a yellow cat brooch. The belt was an old retail buy.  I removed the necklace - another charity shop find - after the photo was taken, as I knew it would bother me while out walking.

We looked for the largest patch of dark green - indicating wooded areas - on our walking map and found it in De Palingbeek, at over 230 hectares the largest Provincial Domain in the West of Flanders.

We'd walked here twice before, starting from a different car park, which our Satnav had us drive around in circles to find back in 2020. Now, we opted to start from the car park near the domain's visitors centre and, although we started our journey with some trepidation, I'm happy to report Ms. Satnav was well behaved this time around.

Our intended walk took us past the ecological kitchen gardens which are part of the domain after which we followed a succession of woodland paths until we arrived at a clearing in the woods. Here a bittersweet surprise in the form of one of the area's many WWI cemeteries awaited us.

Hedge Row Trench Cemetery was begun in March 1915 and was used until August 1917. The layout of the cemetery is rather unusual. During the war, the site suffered so much from shell fire that the positions of the individual graves couldn’t be reconstructed. The headstones are now arranged  around the Cross of Sacrifice, with the circle serving as a symbol for the large amount of craters caused by mine explosions in the area. 98 Commonwealth soldiers are buried here. 

Hundreds of military cemeteries arose in Flanders Fields after the First World War, reminding us of the staggering human toll the conflict took. 27 of the area's WWI sites - alongside a further 112 in Wallonia and France -  have finally been added to UNESCO ‘s World Heritage List earlier this week, Hedge Row Trench Cemetery being one of them.

Next to the cemetery, a row of haversacks are displayed on pedestals. They contain the personal belongings of a fallen soldier buried here. The items are preserved behind plastic: a white handkerchief, a field shovel, a water bottle, a tin of corned beef and a torch to name but a few. 

The display definitely added to veil of unspeakable sadness which hung over the site.

Leaving the cemetery behind us, we rejoined the shady woodland path. 

The patches of bright blue sky and the persistent rays of sunshine which tried to reach us through the the leafy canopy of the trees belied the fact that we were on the cusp of Autumn and that these Indian Summer days might very well have been Summer's swan song. 

There were plenty of benches offering picnic opportunities, so we soon found a shady one for our picnic of ham and cheese sandwiches. Then, after negotiating a cattle grid, we spotted the art installation Coming World Remember Me (below, top right) in the distance. Created by artist Koen Vanmechelen, it originally consisted of 600.000 clay figures sculptured by people from across the globe, representing the 600.000 victims who lost their lives as a result of WWI in Belgium.

One would think that making use of a walking map based on numbered markers is very much like painting by numbers. However, it does require navigational skills, particularly as some of the markers have been placed in such a way that their instructions are somewhat ambiguous. So, it wasn't entirely our self-confessed topographical disorientation which was to blame for the fact that we didn't end up at number 16 as intended. This left us no other option other than to return to the previous number for a second attempt. As we didn't exactly relish the detour in the heat, we breathed sighs of relief when we finally made it to the elusive number 16 post.

We were now at the highest point of the Palingbeek domain. Known to the British as "The Bluff", this was one of the few places where the Allies held higher ground than their opponents. For this reason, at the end of 1915 and throughout 1916, the Germans attempted to capture the position, which was known to them as "Die Grosse Bastion". As a result, it was the scene of several underground explosions and heavy fighting. On 25 July 1916 a massive explosion blew away the top of the mound. In December 1916 the British replied with mines of their own, after which the area became an inaccessible quagmire of deep craters.

There's a pavillion here where you can watch a film about the build-up of the underground war on the battleground known as the southern Ypres Salient.

A couple of paces from the pavillion there's another sculpture by Koen Vanmechelen. This will eventually become the carrier of 600.000 personalized dog tacks (above, bottom left), each bearing the name of a WWI victim. The egg is symbolically protected by a nest of bronze chicken claws.

After having watched the film and rested our feet, the walk continued on a recently installed boardwalk path through the former No Man's Land and along various craters.

The sheep which have the privilege of calling this part of the domain their home were sheltering under the boardwalk and didn't seem to be all that bothered by our approach. 

The final stretch of the walk was mercifully downhill. Here woodland creatures were immortalized in wooden carvings. The hedgerows were full of juicy blackberries which we picked until the plastic tub formerly containing our picnic was filled to the brim.

Having made it back to the visitors centre, we purchased a bottle of ice-cold homemade apple juice to quench our thirst.

Needless to say it tasted quite heavenly after the day's exertions!