Stokrooie to Bokrijk: E2 Day 114

Another short walk today, which gave me the time to visit the Bokrijk Open Air museum. 

Returning to the Albert Canal I watched large barges motor under the bridge I was standing on. All the bridges are similar, a white arch below which the road deck is suspended. Bright red poppies grew on the embankments each side of the bridge, their brilliance overshadowed the more subtle blue of the cornflowers among them. After a few fields I reached Herkenrode Abbey. Dating from 1179 but closed by the Revolutionary French in 1796, its church no longer exists. Now it seems to be a tourist attraction. There was a large art installation in a black metal building on the site, inside it was dark. You looked through a large window at a desolate scene of water filled ditches, rocks and dead trees all in a monochromatic, grayscale. Other than an exercise in the use of mirrors to make a scene look very extensive, I was not sure what the artist was trying to portray. Given an item in today's news on global warming, perhaps a view of the future. 

Albert Canal by Stokrooie.

Wayside poppies and cornflowers.

As on previous days, for much of today I was walking through woodland on a route which again changed direction erratically, possibly to avoid roads and take me to the best locations. One of these was the Kiewit Domain, a "Nature Park" where I stopped for a coffee and cake at a café by the entrance. There were many lakes, one in particular had a large number of fishermen around it, I took care to avoid their long rods.

Today is Ascension Day, a public holiday in Belgium. At first it was very quiet with little traffic on the roads. As the day progressed increasing numbers of people were about, out on their bikes, in family groups and with dogs. From midday it was busy. I noticed that the cyclists on racing bicycles wore helmets, as did young children, but older people and parents on bikes you sat up on were usually bare headed. Maybe they thought as they cycled more slowly they were less at risk. Fortunately, as the cycle paths were generally well separated from roads for cars there was less risk of a deadly collision than in Britain. Small dogs were often carried in baskets at the back of the cycle or in a contrivance in front. If the owner was walking, small dogs might be brought along in a pram.

Around 2 pm I reached the Bokrijk Open Air museum. There is a similar museum near where I lived in Cardiff, we used to call it a Folk Museum as it illuminated the lives of how ordinary people lived in the past. Just like the place near Cardiff, at Bokrijk old buildings had been moved to the site from other locations in Flanders and furnished appropriate to their age. Most dated from the 18th and 19th centuries and included farm buildings, day labourers cottages, windmills, a churches and an inn. Buildings were either half timbered with white painted wattle and daub infilling the panels, or else made of brick. Roofs were either tiled or thatched. In addition to preserving the buildings they were also keeping groups of old breeds of domestic animals from the area, preventing them from dying out, including cows, chickens, sheep and pigs. One building, removed from Antwerp when threatened with demolition, housed an exhibition of living in the 1960's, a decade in which I grew up although too young to participate in protest movements and the pop culture of the time.  Still I felt nostalgic looking at a Grundig reel to reel tape recorder, adverts with people in 1960's clothing, and reproductions of kitchens and living rooms from that time. Strange to think that common items from my youth are now museum pieces.

Buildings in Bokrijk Openair Museum.

Museum items from the 1960's.

Leaving the museum I walked to the Youth Hostel a few kilometres away, where I was fed a huge dinner. The hostel itself was a bit of a time warp. No plugs handy to charge my phone but they did have emus and board games to entertain the kids and the woodland setting was lovely.