ell after a week and a hialf I've managed to get as far as Ghent in Belgeum. I spent 2 days in Brugge and it was a wonder. The buildings are fantastic and of couse there was a chocolate museum where for the princly sum of €7 I was able to look at hundreds of dirty impliment thathave come from the rainforrests of South America or maybe the factories of South Asia. Still when they passed around a large bag of Venuatu Chocolate the hundred or so people took one drop each whilst a few kids at the back and me took a few handfulls. The troble is everyone is ever so polite!! The museum had a large reproduction of the Madonna and child by Micheal Angelo made out of white chocolate. the original is also in Brugge so I dutifully paid my €4 to view the work. I'll leave it to you to decide which I liked the most!!
One of the locals informed me that if you like Brugge you'll love Ghent so I'm now in Ghent enjoying what is an even nicer town than Brugge, it still full of buetiful buildings but without so many people. Definately worth a visit and the master piece here is the Altar piece of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers. This was an experience I did not expect. I took the audio tour which took about 30 minutes but I was smitten. The detail and the quality is unbelivible and to think that it was painted in 1434 was just mind blowing. Just one thing (don't mention the war) if anyone knows where the panel that was stolen in 1944 is, they would like it back!!!
