Hello, and welcome to the second part of my September travelogue.
For those of you who are new here, we've been spending a week in September in a cottage on the outskirts of Poperinge since our first visit back in 2012, when we fell in love with this picturesque part of Belgium, sandwiched between the French border and the North Sea coast.
Now, let me take you back to Thursday the 10th of September. In spite of the fact that the sun had once again taken centre stage, we got off to a very slow start that morning, eventually dragging ourselves out of bed when it was well on its way to 9 am. By the time we'd showered, got dressed and had a leisurely breakfast, the morning was well advanced, so that it would have been too late to go on an outing of any length before lunch.
So we decided to stay local and drive down to Poperinge, all of 10 minutes away by car.
We were, after all, on a mission!
As Jos had gained a bit of weight courtesy of the cortisone-like medication he has been prescribed, he was no longer comfortable wearing a belt and had been toying with the idea of buying himself a pair of braces instead.
It so happens that for many a year we'd been admiring the display of braces in the window of a Poperinge shop, marvelling at their choice of fun designs. So, with that in mind, it goes without saying that no other shop would do!
We'd walked past the shop in question on our way to the Hop Museum on Wednesday, only to find that it was their closing day. Therefore our first port of call on that lazy Thursday morning was a no-brainer!
I'm sure you can imagine our disappointment at finding the shop closed once more. It was then that we saw the note pinned next to the one with the opening hours, proclaiming that they were closed for annual holidays. As they would be re-opening on Friday we had one final chance, even if it would disrupt our plans for that day.
Our consolation prize consisted in huge cups of cappuccino on the terrace of La Poupée, arguably the most popular of the establishments on Poperinge's Market Place.
This was followed by a quick visit to St-Bertinus church, Poperinge's main church and at the same time its oldest, the current building dating back to 1420. Here, we admired the modern stained glass windows (1980) designed by Arno Brys (°1928).
In honour of the upcoming hop festival, the church was decorated with hop bines, while carved wooden hop bells can be spotted in the church's rood screen.
After lunch and a short siesta back at the cottage, we decided to go for a short walk. Our destination of choice was the park beloning to De Lovie, a domain complete with Neoclassical castle, managed by a charitable organisation which supports children, young people and adults with mental disabilities.
Here another minor disappointment awaited as the castle turned out to be covered in scaffolding.
Not to be deterred, our little walk took us to the outskirts of the domain and the charming little garden called The Six Senses. On our way back, we rested our feet for a while inside a chapel dedicated to St. Theresa.
Miss Sunshine decided to play hide-and-seek with the clouds on Friday, leaving us with a mostly grey and mizzly day.
We'd made plans for the afternoon, but obviously we needed to continue with our mission of buying Jos a pair of braces from that shop in Poperinge first.
It was nothing short of a relief to finally find the shop open. After some dithering, Jos's choice fell on the green pair on the left. We later went back for the red pair on the right. Don't worry, you'll get to see him wearing the green pair shortly.
Our afternoon outing took us across the border into France for the first time that week.
Only a 20-minute drive along country lanes from our cottage, our chosen destination was the Conservatoire Botanique National de Bailleul, a 25-hectare natural and educational site located in northern France, dedicated to the study and preservation of regional and European flora.
It might have been only a short drive but it was definitely a bumpy one, the final stretch being on a severely pot-holed lane.
When, according to our Satnav, we were only a couple of minutes from our destination, we hadn't even clocked that we'd crossed the border! We were about to admit defeat and consider ourselves lost when I finally spotted a peeling sign half-hidden by an overgrown hedge.
It started raining lightly the minute we stepped out of our car, so we grabbed our umbrellas and walked into the direction of the deserted ticket office. It turned out that the gardens were deserted as well: we had the 25-hectare site completely to ourselves!
The site contains two separate gardens, the smaller of the two being the Jardin des Plantes Médicinales (Medicinal Plant Garden), which showcases roughly 500 species of medicinal plants from across Europe.
The larger one, the Jardin des Plantes Sauvages (Wild Plant Garden) has around 1000 plant species across 64 themed plots and various reconstructed natural ecosystems, including dunes, chalk grasslands, meadows, heathland, peat bogs, and ponds.
Both had greatly suffered from the succession of heatwaves, but there was still more than enough of interest, although I wouldn't mind coming back here in Spring or early Summer.
The rain soon did a runner, making way for rays of glorious sunshine, which would accompany us into the evening.
Saturday the 12th of September was my birthday. My 65th birthday, to be exactly, so that I may officially consider myself an OAP. Well, on paper, that is. At the very least, it entitles me to a bus pass at a steeply reduced price :-)
Anyway, the weather gods treated me to a sunny day for my birthday!
I was determined to spend my birthday abroad, so we once again set off for the border, my choice of destination being Esquelbecq, a charming little town, or rather, village in French Flanders, about 20 kilometers from our cottage.
We had barely crossed the border into France when our plans were thwarted by a road closure due to a funfair. Unperturbed by it all, our Satnav proceeded to guide us along a succession of narrow lanes whose surfaces had seen better days, until we reached a main road with erratic speed limits, where we joined a long queue of traffic behind a slow-moving agricultural vehicle. It was nothing short of a miracle that we finally made it to at our destination and immediately found a free parking space on the main square opposite the church.
Esquelbecq is said to owe its name to the presence of its many oak trees. The name first appears in the 9th Century AD in the biography of St. Folquin, who converted the local population to Christianity and died here in 855.
Presiding over the village's main square is the three-aisled hall church that bears its name - its oldest part dating back to the 10th Century - with its striking yellow and red trellis-like brickwork.
The tower houses a carillon with 13 bells, 12 of which date back to 1586.
The church was heavily damaged by a massive fire on Palm Sunday in 1976. It was painstakingly reconstructed in its traditional Flemish Gothic style and was finally reopened to the public on Christmas Eve in 1978.
Some charred pieces of liturgical furniture and religious statues survived the fire and can still be viewed inside the church today as a historical record of the event.
The ultimate aim of our journey was a visit to the 17th-century Flemish Renaissance water castle located in the centre of the village. As it would only open at 2 pm, we had a wander around the village and paid a visit to the church until our stomachs reminded us that it was time for lunch.
We were able to grab one of the last tables at La Régalade, a restaurant right next to and with a view of the castle.
The gates opened at exactly 2 pm, by which time a small group of people was waiting impatiently, dying to explore the castle and its grounds.
Built around 1606–1610 on medieval foundations, the fairy tale-like castle features red brick styling, U-shaped wings enclosing an inner courtyard, round Gothic-style towers, wide moats fed by the River Yser, and a 17th-century dovecote.
Although we didn't spot any doves, we were charmed by the free-roaming snow white peacocks which call the grounds their home. In fact, they are such a beloved feature of the castle that a white peacock feather serves at the castle's emblem. Some feathers were even for sale in the boutique selling home-grown produce and home-made jams, but as luck would have it, we found one for free in the grounds.
The castle originally had a medieval donjon or keep, which tragically collapsed during a storm in September 1984. The imposing 30-meter-tall donjon, featuring a spiral staircase with 126 steps, stood in the inner courtyard of the castle and had been added to and modified over the centuries, which ultimately affected the structure's stability.
The keep collapsed inward and outward, entirely obliterating itself while crushing almost half of the castle's North Wing. The impact destroyed the historical salons, valuable furnishings and centuries-old artwork, instantly making the castle unsafe and completely uninhabitable.
Following the disaster, the estate remained shuttered, neglected, and closed to the public for more than 30 years. It was officially registered as a historical monument in 1987 to protect what remained.
In the early 2000s, the Tamer-Morael family acquired the property and launched a multi-decade restoration effort. They rebuilt the destroyed North Wing, repaired the roofs and revitalized the unique gardens.
There are no plans to rebuild the iconic donjon, though.
The castle officially reopened its doors to the public in 2018 although apart from the garden and grounds just a handful of rooms - most of them still unfinished - can be visited.
In the courtyard, a row of open windows are inviting a peek into the estate kitchens.
The 7-hectare estate includes formal Flemish Renaissance gardens, a kitchen garden, an orchard, and - according to the almighty Internet - a plant maze inspired by 17th-century models, which unfortunately we weren't aware of at the time of our visit.
There are topiaries and hedges, carefully trained and pruned pear and apple trees, and a lush and well-stocked vegetable garden.
Taking centre stage in the garden since 2016 is a monumental sculpture titled L'Arrosoir d'Alice (Alice's Watering Can) by the French sculptor Philippe Thill.
The sculpture stands about 4 meters tall and features a massive watering can complete with a large snail perched on its handle. Based, quite obviously, on Alice in Wonderland, the piece plays with scale to make visitors feel like tiny characters lost in an oversized garden.
It was late afternoon before we were finally able to tear ourselves away from this glorious garden.
The journey back to our cottage wasn't without its hiccups, but that definitely didn't spoil this most perfect of days.
Thank you for joining us on our travels!
