Bergues: Flemish Flags in France

I decided to drive to Bergues today. Before the release of the movie Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis, I had never heard of the town. But it looked very charming on the big screen and when I looked it up on the map, it wasn't even an hour away from where I live. I drove via the lovely Flanders Fields area around Ieper and Poperinge to the incredibly ugly A25 connecting Lille/Rijsel with Dunkerque/Duinkerke and arrived in little Bruges - as some guidebooks call it - in the early afternoon.

My first impression of Bergues was great. I had just spent 20 minutes on an Eastern European looking highway and then suddenly: a fortified town! With a medieval wall. Around the ENTIRE town. With several gates from the 12th century or so. And a great skyline with a nice belfry and gothic church spires. This looked awesome!

My second impression was even greater. I could park my car on the central market square for free! Yes, for free! Can you imagine? Parking for free in a tourist town anno 2008?I picked up a city walk map at the tourist information office and head out for a 2 hour hike around the town full of surprises.

A huge surprise was the amount of Flemish flags I saw hanging out the buildings. First I thought it was some kind of similar looking city flag, but no, it was OUR flag. The one which half of the Flemish people are embarassed about because foreigners associate it with the right extremist xenophobe narrow minded Flemish nationalists of Het Vlaams Belang. This is great. I would love to see the towns in Flanders do the same. Be proud! Be chauvinist! Don't let the extremist claim a nice bold flag! I loved Bergues immediatly.

Second surprise: nobody I talked to was able to speak Flemish. There was some discussion when the movie came out that it was wrong to locate the movie in Bergues, because people at Bergues are Flemish and not Ch'ti. But my experience learned that everyone spoke standard French to me.

A third surprise was the very typical Flemish character of the city. It somehow is logical of course, but still, you're in France and the city never gets any coverage in our media. I loved the lace behind the windows of the 14th century houses. I loved the typical chimneys that you see in our towns as well. It's a small town, but it has at least four friteries (french fries snack stsands). There's a little canal, a lot of old brick houses, a gothic stone church, a belfry... Yes, it does remind a tourist of Bruges. But I also felt like walking around Ieper. Especially because of the impressive defence wall that you can walk on. The ramparts even made me think of Dutch defence towns like Willemstad.

I started walking towards the only remnants of the abbey that gave its name to the town. The city was first mentioned when a monk from Brittany came over to the area to baptize the local pagans. He built an abbey called the Saint Winoc Abbey and built it on a green mountain. Bergues used to be called Sint Winoksbergen in Flemish. (Bergen = mountains) There's not much left of it, apart from a reconstructed chapel and a massive defence tower. There's a pleasant park around it and on the site itself I saw a typical French thing: four guys playing pétanque.

I marched along and on the defence wall to the Cassel Gate where I went back to the centre of the city. There's a statue of Flemish cow on the way, which seems to be the meeting point for school kids and tourists to get on the bus leaving the town. Most of the squares and streetnames are linked to the purpose the area's had in the Middle Ages, but all the names are in French! I assume that also changed when Napoleon introduced the streetnames.

Within the star shaped defence town, you have two area's. One has the ramparts and the Abbey. The other has a circular old town with most of the sights. There's plenty of beautiful facades to look at. There's a museum in an old merchants house. There's the St Martin Church which has an usual shape that is only noticeable when you enter it. Nice stained windows as well. There are some intersting monuments and statues around the town, like the memorial for the victims of the world wars (a dying wounded soldier reaching out for help). You can see several statues of saints in the wall of corner houses. There's a lock, a canal, a mould and the compulsory swans to make it all look perfect. I wasn't too impressed by the city hall and the big giant sitting in front of it, but I did like the one thing everybody will know from the movie: the belfry tower. In the movie the local hero plays the carillon and as I was walking around town, someone was playing it as well. Contrary to the one in Tournai/Doornik, this one looks more fairytale like.

I couldn't walk around the town without tasting some local delicacies and went to a butcher's place which had pictures from the movie's local character all over the window. I bought the Ch'ti paté and they Bergues sausage. Then I went to the baker a bit further on and bought a Ch'ti bread and a tasty chocolate pastry roll of which I forgot the name. I'm not sure the paté and the bread was called Ch'ti before the movie became a succes, but it tasted delicious. The sausage on the otherhand was very fat and didn't look like you could eat it unprepared. Think of a huge Bavarian white sausage, double that size and then eat it raw! It was okay, but I don't think I'll buy it again. The amount of shops in the town is less than 15 I guess. I assume people go shopping at shopping centers outside of the city wall. But what they lacked in shops, the made up with outside bars and restaurants (with names like Breughel), serving typical flemish stew or rabbit with prunes.

As I was driving out of Bergues, I was wondering again: how do we not know about this gem so nearby? I went to visit friends who live 20 min east of Bergues, across the border in Diksmuide, and who had never heard about this 'other Bruges'. I think if you ask 1000 Flemish people if they have ever heard/read about his place, not one single person would say 'yes' (apart for the occasional wise ass of course). The movie has had an impact on tourism of course. But nobody in Flanders has seen the movie. SO GO SEE THE MOVIE! AND GO TO BERGUES!

And if you do, make sure you make a stop in Hondschoote, which has an amazing gothic cathedral looking church, which looks huge because it stands in the centre of a circular road and is not surrounded by other high buildings. The village also has a stone city hall, but more important probably the oldest windmill in Europe. At least the oldest in the Low Countries. It does not have a winding cap, but it's charming. Behind it are miles of corn fields. And in the far distance you can see the hop fields as well.

Yeah, great afternoon

French Flanders vs Wallonia

I already mentioned Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis, the French comedy about a guy from the provence who is transferred to the north of France and has some trouble 'adjusting'. It's a real blockbuster in France and French Speaking Belgium (Brussels and Wallonia), and from what I hear also in Canada. I thought the humor was pretty mediocre, but the movie did entertain me and it showed me an area of France, which is so close by, but which is as unknown to me as Wallonia: it's French Flanders!

Until the French revolution French Flanders was just part of the county of Flanders. After that it became French territory and when Belgium was created in 1830/1831 the French didn't want to give it back. The most important city of French Flanders is Lille, which we call Rijsel. The name may conjure up the image of a big, grey, ugly, boring industrial town. But the truth is that the city centre is actually quite charming: with lots of bars and Renaissance buildings and great shopping area's. Napoleon thought Rijsel (ter IJsel - on the island) sounded un-French, so he imposed the frenchified name Lille (L'isle - the island). And amazingly enough people from Antwerp or The Netherlands will already refer to the city as Lille and not Rijsel. Change that please! We don't call Prague Praha either. Other cities in the area also lost their original Flemish name, but most villages however kept their nomination. Hondschoote, Steenvoorde, Bollezeele, Volckerinkchove... Written in a 17th century Dutch!

The town that the main character of the movie is transferred to is Bergues, 45 minutes north of Lille/Rijsel, closer to the harbor of Dunkerque (Duinkerke in Dutch). That's the real French Flanders. The area around Lille/Rijsel is so frenchified that you can only notice its Flemish past by the dishes they serve in the restaurants, the architecture of the buildings, the many Flemish shoppers and the amount of students at the faculty of Germanic Languages that chose to learn Dutch. The area around Bergues however, is more Flemish. There's a joke in the movie were a character starts speaking the dialect of the north (the Ch'ti) and is misunderstood by the guy from the south and then continues talking in Flemish, which - as he explains - is the language of the older generation. And that's apparently still true. Most 75 y olds in that area can still speak (West-)Flemish. I've also recently seen a documentary on television on how there's a resurrection of Flemish in the north and that children in elementary school actually start learning to count and chitchat in Flemish. The cool thing about that is that the children learn West-Flemish (the dialect I speak) and not standard Dutch!

Now French Flanders has nothing to do with Wallonia. Wallonia is the south of Belgium. Most of Wallonia never belonged to the county of Flanders. It belonged to the duchy of Brabant, the county of Hainaut, the duchy of Luxemburg, the county of Namur, etc... Hell, even Antwerp and Brussels never belonged to the county of Flanders. But French Flanders did. And for that they can still call themselves La Flandre.

When I introduce myself in France as 'from Flanders', most people will automatically assume I'm from the area around Dunkerque. They will not think I'm from the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. French media somehow don't really refer to our region as Flanders, since they only use that word to refer to their most northern province. They just refer to us as Belgians. The majority of the French don't even know that the majority of the Belgians speak Dutch, since the only Belgians they ever hear of are French speaking and their media and schoolbooks just ignore the other 60 percent.

I've interacted with thousands more people from French Flanders than with people from Wallonia. They were the customers of my parents shop. They are the ones I meet when I bike in France or when I shop in Lille/Rijsel. But I really don't know them that well either. I just notice that I regard them differently even though some people (especially the French) think that they are the same. They are not. They may say that they are from La Flandre, but they feel French. They may speak some Flemish, but they feel French. So far, I still have to find one Walloon who feels French.

Tournai: Flemish Walloon or French?

Even though Tournai looks like a Flemish town, has always been very important for Flanders during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it's no longer Flemish in the 2008 sense of the word.

I had a very interesting conversation with the lady at the tourist information centre and the director of the Museum of Tapestry and Textile Art. Both were fluent in Dutch and could have spoken to me in my native language. The latter actually preferred to speak Dutch, but I told her that if I expect French speaking Belgians to speak Flemish when they visit Flanders, that I should speak French when I visit Wallonia. They both complimented me on my French. Not sure why I am writing this down, but I kinda feel proud about that.

Anyways, I wondered how Flemish the town still was and both said that Tournai is almost 100 percent French speaking. There's not really an interest in learning Dutch, nor do people from Tournai ever go to Flanders. They also told me that I would have to look very hard to find a store (a shop, a baker, whatever) where I could order something in Dutch. I didn't really try it because of, well, what I just wrote in the previous part. But I trust they wouldn't lie about that. Can you imagine that in any Flemish city? That people in a store wouldn't understand a client if he spoke French?

I asked them about the school system and the children in Tournai still have the choice at age 13 to either choose Dutch or English. That's something which I totally don't understand and why I've been so pro-Flanders ever since I was ten years old. Every kid in FLanders has to learn French at the age of 10. Even though we all speak better English by that age. But in Wallonia they have the choice! Of course they choose English. I would have chosen English too if they would have given me the choice.

But then I asked about Wallonia and then I found it interesting that people in Tournai don't consider themselves Walloons at all. Of course, I didn't talk to that many people. I would need to ask more people about this. But I think it's pretty logical that people in Tournai have nothing in common with people in Arlon or Namur apart from some popular culture on television. People from Tournai feel much more connected to French Flanders. Hey, it's almost a suburb of Lille/Rijsel. It's kind of logical. Apparently young people in Tournai go out in Lille, not in Brussels or Flanders. They go shopping in Lille. They even go to the university in Lille, rather than to Louvain la neuve.

There's currently a French comedy breaking all movie records in French speaking Belgium (and France). It's called Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis. I saw the movie. It's ok. I had to laugh a few times. Especially when someone starts speaking Flemish. It's about this postal office director who gets transfered from the South of France to the area around Lille and has trouble adjusting to the different lifestyle and especially the different dialect. So I asked the ladies in Tournai what kind of French they spoke and they confirmed that they were also speaking Ch'ti. So not Walloon French, but northern France French.

Check the trailer (in French) http://movieclock.com/aw/cvpa.aw/e/188820/Bienvenue_chez_les_Ch_tis.html

Apart from the people speaking French in Tournai, it very much looked like any kind of town in Flanders. Also the area around the city, was very familiar to me.

I actually like the idea of Lille, Tournai and Kortrijk forming a European Agglomoration. Economically and industrially the area already promotes itself as ONE euroregion. Now, we just have to become more culturally interested in each other. And respect each other's language. Some politicians are now referring to solve the Brussels problem by trying to imitate our euroregion. Hey, apparently here, Flanders, Wallonia and France work together withouth big problems. So why can't they do it in Brussels? I'm not opposed to that way of thinking. But people also have to realise that the French speaking immigrants in Kortrijk don't make any effort to learn Dutch. Just like all the French speaking 'immigrants' in the Flemish cities around Brussels have no respect for our language either.

Today again, I realised that I'm too openminded to believe in borders and that the only reason why I'm so pro Flanders is the fact that I just can't understand why WE (flemish) have no trouble speaking French and THEY (french speaking people in general) have no interest in speaking our language at all. This language thing gets me every time. And yes, I also have a problem with Flemish people not willing/being able to speak French or not knowing their culture.

Tournai Cathedral: The Theft Of A Cross

The main sight in Tournai is the Cathedral. At least from the oustide. It has five spires, but unlike the cathedral in Bonn, the five spires are all next to each other and are all unique. They look harmonious though and from a large distance they look like they are all lined up next to each other (whereas in reality you have a middle one, surrounded by four smaller ones on each corner). So yes, it's a spectacular cathedral, but the interior sucks. It's an archeological site at the moment. The transept is just a hole in the ground. They have found some tombes and graves and are trying to escavate them. But the cathedral is built on the site of several other places of worship and that makes the digging up a tiny bit more difficult than in other circumstances. I'm sure it's excellent study material for students archeology, but if you're a tourist it's a nuisance.

The cathedral is famed for a famous Byzanthium cross, covered with gold and colourful diamonds. It's in all the brochures. It's basically a symbol of the city and it's taken out once a year on a procession through the city. I had to see this shiny piece of bling bling!

But as I'm looking around, I find the treasury closed off for visitors. Too late, I think and continue walking around the church. Until I meet a young guy who's sitting at a very basic information desk. I ask him about the cross and he looks as if I'm a reporter. "No comments", he says, which leaves me a bit baffled. I introduce myself and ask what the problem is and the guy gets all nervous and brings me to his superior. "This gentleman wants to know what happened with the cross." I feel like I'm getting myself into a Da Vinci Code mystery thriller. The superior takes me into the treasury room and secretly tells me about the theft of the Cross. Apparently, on February 18, three masked men stole the famous cross and twelve other relics on broad daylight. They were armed and beat up a church clerk and an American tourist who tried to intervene. This happened at 10 am in the morning and the police believe the men had been hiding in the church for more than an hour before they executed their plan. They were masked, wore whigs and had dressed up as well. Two men in the church, one man ready in his car outside of the cathedral. Nobody heard them enter the church, nobody ever found a trace.

I love the story and hear the woman out. She confides in me and just talks and talks. I tell her I'm a tourguide and I think it's a great story to tell my passengers if I ever visit Tournai with them. And then she realises she's talking to the wrong person. As she pushes me gently out of the treasury we meet the man she was expecting. Some kind of writer/journalist named Paul. I think it's hilarious. There I am, unaware of this theft and being mistaken for a journalist.

So this is pretty spectacular drama, worthy of an international conspiracy movie. I'm thinking James Bond here. Even Indiana Jones. My imagination just runs wild. Three guys steal a gold/diamond cross on broad daylight. Why? Who's the collector? What is he going to do with it? WHat are his/her children going to do with it if the collector ever dies. Will they sell it on a flea market? It's so famous. They can't just go to people who know about these relics. Or were the gangster young people who will have the cross melt and get paid for it? Bye bye history! Man, all these questions after a single visit of a cathedral. I hear Hollywood. Not Wallonywood.

Tournai (Doornik): the sights!

Not so long ago, I read an article in an international magazine about Belgium, which - much to my surprise - recommended a visit to Tournai. It didn't mention Ghent, which was even more suprising, but it did mention - what I knew as - the second oldest city of my country (after Tongeren).

I wondered why I had never been to Tournai, which we call Doornik in Flemish. I did learn about its importance during Roman times in elementary school. But we never went on an excursion there, even though it's only 30 km away from where I grew up. I knew it had a cathedral and a fine arts museum. But it never crossed my mind to actually go and visit them. The Flemish media never report about what's going on there, nor does the international press. A forgotten city so to speak. But in my current interest of anything Wallonian I decided to give it try.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, give it try as well! It's really worth it. I really liked the town a lot. I wouldn't go back there any time soon, but I'm glad I did go today and I'm actually thinking of taking a group up there if they show an interest in seeing something of the French speaking part of Belgium.

The most interesting thing of the city is its history. This was an important town during the Roman occupation of the area (which was named Tornacum at the time), but little remains of that period. It was the capital of the Frankish empire under the kings Childeric and Clovis! It's the birthplace of Roger van der Weyden, one of the most famous Flemish painters. It belonged to England once and even had a seat in the Parliament of England. The bishop of Tournai was the catholic leader of Flanders for more than a 1000 years! It has the oldest Belfry and medieval bridge of the country. And so on. And so on.

I really liked walking around the town. I visited two museums, one of which was the Museum of Fine Arts. It's located in an extraordinary building, designed by art nouveau master Victor Horta. There's a huge circle entrance hall and around that hall you have the exhibition rooms, which contain great works from Monet & Manet a.o.; some modern nude photography art and a huge painting which caught my interest called 'Abdication of Charles-Quint' by local painter Louis Gallait. I also visited the Museum of Tapestry and Textile Art, which had a temporary exhibit about Flemish wall carpets that were sent to Italy many centuries ago. It also has two floors of contemporary textile art, which was quite fascinating. There were some people restoring textile works, such as tapestries. I sometimes go to the tapestry restoration house in Oudenaarde with my passengers, but this would be a good alternative. There are a lot museums in the city, which I didn't visit this time. Apparently the Folklore Museum is great and so are the Museum of Weapons and Military History & Museum of History and Decorative Art. There was even a private museum which caught my attention that dealt with puppets (on a string).

The city itself is split in two by the Scheldt river. One side is residential and has shops and the train station. The other side is more historic and has all the museums and the main tourist attractions. Along the river you have the old fish market, which now houses a lot of bars. In front of it there's this elevated bridge which is pretty useless since a few meters further you have a much easier bridge to cross the river. It's not remarkable at all, but it has its charm and you can take pictures on it. So why get rid of it? The Main Square is great. Not as spectacular as in other towns, but very nice anyways. It has this cool ground level fountain which is a big hit with children, since the water seems to erupt from the ground at irregular intervals and you can get wet if you stay too long on the wrong spot. I also liked the cloth hall a lot, which looks more like an important renaissance city hall. The belfry on the other hand may be the oldest in the country, but I wasn't too impressed by it. I was more impressed by the little statues that are spread all over the city and represent some trades. All over the city you also have plaques in four different languages (F, D, G, E) that give some more details about certain aspects of the city. There are several medieval towers around the city and the medieval three-arched bridge over the river Scheldt was very pictoresque. I wanted to climb on top of it (there was a spiral staircase), but the top of the bridge looked like it was inhabited by the bums of the city. There must have been an old restaurant on top of the bridge which apparently closed many months ago and was now occupied by homeless. I may of course have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fact was that I rushed down the spiral staircase after some local bums gave me an evil look.

I'm sure there's a lot of other sights that I didn't see during my vist, but you can definitly spend a whole afternoon there.

By coincidence I drove past a most remarkable church outside of the city, which had a really cool attraction. The church is called Sacre Coeur and is located on the way to Ronse/Renaix. It's very small and there's nothing else to see in the neighbourhood (apart from a typical french fries stand which seemed to be very popular according to the huge line of clients outside), but you have to see it. There's a huge statue of Jesus Christ on top of the church tower. This may not sound that extraordinary, but guys (and girls): it's on TOP of the tower. Where you normally have, just a roof or a rooster or a cross or any kind of windvane. No, here it's a statue! Why go to Rio if we have such a cool Jesus statue over here?

Mouscron/Moeskroen - Estaimpuis/(Steenput) - Pecq

I live very close to the Wallonian (and French) border, but I hardly ever go there. When I was a kid I often biked to Roncq & Tourcoing, which are suburbs of the French metropole Lille/Rijsel. But I never biked to Wallonia. The closest Walloon city is Mouscron/Moeskroen, which is a pretty dull town. There's nothing to see really. The only reason you'd ever go there is because of its train connection to Lille/Rijsel. Or when your dad is playing an important billiard game in a local billiard club there. Or when you are a soccer fan (Mouscron plays in Premier League!).

Mouscron/Moeskroen is a facility municipality which allows the large dutch speaking minority to get documents and city help in their native tongue. There are a few of these communities in Belgium, but they aren't as peaceful as Mouscron/Moeskroen. I actually have never heard any stories about the Flemish being discriminated or insulted in that city. A bit further you have the Walloon enclave of Comines/Komen, which is also a facility municipality, but where tensions are much higher. A typical news story on September 1st (the first day of the school year) is that anti-Flemish inhabitants of Comines/Komen barricade the gates of the Flemish elementary school. It's more a tradition, than violence really. But still, it's stupid.

Anyways, the reason why so may Flemish live in Mouscron/Moeskroen is because of the cheaper housing. It can really make a huge difference in your budget. A former colleague of mine went to live in a fermette style house in Estaimpuis and paid some 70.000 euro less than in Flanders. That's a lot!

Estaimpuis is the first real Walloon town across the border, considering that Mouscron/Moeskroen has a bit of a special status. Estaimpuis is called Steenput in Flemish, but since the city is not a facility town, you'll never hear/read the Flemish name at all. The town itself exists of several smaller villages, of which Saint-Leger is the nicest one. It has a very nice church annex cemetery and it's surrounded by farmland: an excellent area to bike in! There's a little canal dug out there along an old river called the Spiere/Espière, which has given its name to a small Flemish dual town along the border: Spiere-Helkijn/Espièrres-Helchin. And that is again a facility community, where the French speaking inhabitants have the right to get administration done in French. Both the canal and the river finally flow into the Scheldt river.

Another nice little church can be found in the next Walloon town of Pecq. Now, Pecq is a name I've heard so much when I was a child, but if you had asked me this morning why, I wouldn't have known the answer. The only thing I remember was that we had to protest with the elementary school (!!!!) against the construction of a road that was called Pecq-Armentières. I had never thought about this until I drove by the town today and I looked it up on the internet. Apparently, the road construction was very controversial. There were environmentalist groups against it. But it was also a major clash between the Flemish and the Walloon communities. That, however, I did not know.

As mentioned before there's a place called Comines/Komen which is part of Wallonia, but is an enclave between Flanders and France. In the early '80s (when I was a kid) the Walloon government wanted Comines/Komen to be connected with the rest of Wallonia by a good, fast road and not everyone liked that idea. There were many suggestions for the road: going through Flanders, going through France, going along the border through the Lys and Scheldt river valleys. Nobody seemed to agree on the right location of the new road. After years of protests and meetings there was a road built which isn't a straight road at all, and somehow includes parts of the ring around Lille/Rijsel. Funny how I don't remember this road being a communautaire conflict (a conflict between the Flemish and French Speaking communities in Belgium). Also interesting how this is no longer an issue anymore.

Wallonywood! Eldorado

I started my summer interest in Wallonia, by going to a Walloon movie which won some prices in Cannes and which is a big hit in the french speaking part of Belgium. It's such a suprise hit that they decided to show it in Flanders too. And I went to see it in Antwerp.

Now, the succesful Walloon movies almost always get shown in the arthouse cinemas in Flanders. The succesful Flemish movies hardly ever get a release in French speaking Belgium. I really don't get that. How the french speaking people can call us racist and all, realizing very well that we have much more interest in their culture than they have in ours. A really good Flemish thriller like De Zaak Alzheimer finally made it to the cinema's in downtown Brussels, but nobody went to see it!

Anyways, I don't really think that this new hyped movie, called Eldorado, will draw that many Flemish moviegoers either as it's, well, not that good really. I don't get all the rave reviews. Sure, it's a different movie. There are some fun moments, some big surprises and it has a good soundtrack. Bouli Lanners, who also directed the movie, is excellent in the main role, since he's able to make the audience believe that the actions of the main character are plausible. The rest of the cast sucks. In a way, it's not a bad movie, it had me entertained for 80 minutes. But the story is just full of shit. Some of the dialogues are, though effective, extremely simple. And the image you get from Wallonia is again so depressing. My God, why can't they show a NICE side of the area. The forests are so beautiful up there, yet in every movie I see from Wallonia, the forest represents some kind of darkness in the movie characters' life.

This movie deals about a lonely dealer in American cars who befriends an (ex) junkie who tried to steal some money in his house. They go on a road trip and discuss 'life'. I guess an alternative Flemish movie maker could have made a similar movie situated in Flanders, but I did feel like I was watching a movie from a different country. However, the junkie's mother reminded me very much of the bassist's mother in Ex-Drummer. In that way, low life trash can live in both parts of the country.

Let's just say, that the movie didn't really excite me about getting to know the Walloons better.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wy7RosBDa0