Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1911 — A WEEK IN BELGIUM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A WEEK IN BELGIUM

ALONG stretch of great white building® looming at you through the haze is your first Introduction to Ostend. As the steamer approaches nearer and near to the landing stage, the outlines of column and gable, tower and minaret, balcony and arch, and .the sound of distant music come to you; and then, as the buttresses of the pier absorb your view, you are greeted with a babel of French and Flemish, and all the bustle of a foreign port. You begin to realize the delights of having arrived at the most beautiful summer city In the world— Ostend. For the moment you may be bewildered with all that you see. Your dinner Is being served to you in a vast chamber filled with exquisitely gown-

ed women and men, mostly in evening dress. Through the open French windows a great crowd is passing along the Digue, the magnificent roadway which stretches along the sea to the right and left of Ostend, to France on one side, to Holland on the other. You hear every language, and you soon notice every type of nationality, but always the best of that nationality. Ostend is the congress ground of the aristocrat from everywhere. Everybody, laughing and happy, everybody living for the moment, forgetful of the before, and careless of the afterwards. Only Ostend, Reine des Plages, can produce such a scene; nowhere in all the world is it equalled. Then, off to the station, for you are going to see as much of Belgium as you can in your week’s holiday. In half an hour you are in Bruges, the old, old City of Flanders, “The Venice of the North,” as she once proudly called herself, when she could boast of 200,000 inhabitants, of a sovereign’s brilliant court, and of massive walls and a powerful army able to defy, an emperor’s wrath. Now Bruges has nothing but her thrilling romantic past and the inestimable treasures of art which even her' conquerors refrained from taking. In Ghent you must see the cathedral with its world-famous altar-piece “The Adoration of the Lamb,” by the brothers Van Eyck, and the tombs of former bishops, wonders In carved marble. Nor must you fail to pause a few minutes before the town hall, where you will view the stone pulpit from which Jacques Vaa Artevelde, “dear goßslp and ally” of Edward IH, addressed his turbulent fellow-burghers. After dinner you had better catch your train for Brussels, for you will arrive at the capital long before midnight, and you will have ample tithe to see something of night life In “Little Paris” before you go to bed. Brussels is more or less familiar ground to everybody who has been on the continent, even if the rest of Belgium is not so well known. Having breakfasted, you will start early on your sight-seeing, and if you have not been to the Belgian capital before, you will begin with the town hall This remarkable Gothic building dates from the fourteenth century, and wit-’ nessed the execution of Counts Egmont and Horae by Alva. You must do the cathedral and picture galleries. Antwerp is only half an hour's train from Brussels, and you should give It a full day, at any rate; so arrive as early as you can from Brussels, and begin with the cathedral, if only to see the Ruben: masterpieces. There are one or two more churches almost of equal Interest, one of which contains the family mausoleum of Rubens. Then there is the Plantln Museum of

Printing, with the residence of the great Antwerp citizen Just as he used to inhabit it, and several picture galleries crammed with treasures. But Antwerp is the city of pictures, and you must watch your time. You. should walk along the splendid docks —there are raised stone terraces for promenading—and in the midst of the bustle of mighty commerce there is the old Steen Castle to be explored, the former fortress of the port and palace of the Marquesses of Antwerp. Here is a collection of all manner of mediaeval marvels, musical instruments, beds, torture-machines, and a variety of horrible dungeons in the depths below the basement. From Antwerp go to JAege, about an hour and a half’s Journey, but the views from the train will repay you. The old city of the prinee-bishops and the birthplace of Charlemagne is singularly free from smoke and noxious vapors and other outward signs of its commercial activity, thanks to Its situation. It is built in a sort of basin between the hills around it; on the slopes of the hills are the factories, and all the unpleasantness blows over the city. The Palace of the Bishops, the university and the citadbl can be done by you, with lunch between, and In the later afternoon you can catch a train for Spa and arrive at the celebrated city of springs in time to make yourself presentable for dinner. At Spa you axe again In the midst of the best continental society, with the usual sprinkling of American millionaires and English “milord's;” and it is Wednesday evening in your week’s holiday. You will find Spa full of amusement, for it is the sports ‘center of Belgium. You can now take the railway to Coo, where there is a waterfall of wondrous beauty, and you find yourself amid the wild scenery of the Ambleve river, and on the borders of Belgium’s miniature Switzerland, the mountainous paradise of the Ardennes. From Coo you can take a drive to Remouchamps, a little township facing the Ambleve rapids and lying in the midßt of scenery of extraordinary beauty. v < However, your week is coming to a close, and so you had best take a train from Remouchamps to Jemelle, on the main line again of the state railways, and manage to reach Namur, traveling the while through one of the most picturesque districts, not only in

Belgium, but in all Europb. Namur is the ancient fortress which has figured in the wars of history for more than six centuries. Namur, indeed, la encompassed with the fairest charms that nature can veal. The lovely valleys and hills of the Meuse, the Lease and the Ourthe rivers, the grqttoes of Han and Rochefort, and many other romantic attractions in the way of feudal ruins, picturesque cascades, fairy glens, and noble forests can be made a menu of daily sight-seeing, to be prolonged or curtailed as your holiday permits. The fortress of Namur, with the ramparts and earthworks, which were so formidable in the days when William of Orange besieged it, are now portion of the public pleasure groiyid. During your week of rapid sight-see-ing you will have discovered that Belgian! is not only the country that seems to have been the center place of the world’s history ever since history began, but that every inch of its territory is romantic and instructive. Its natural beauties and perfect accessibility from end to end make It the most enjoyable tourist and holiday land lxr all Europe.:

Hotel de Ville, Bruges.

Guild Houses, Antwerp.