Back to Gent, via Leuven

31st August to 16th September 2020

I have promised myself no more than 5 photos a day this time …. unless it is photos of a town or city that deserves more than five – so let’s get started. (Update; I didn’t quite manage this!)

The last post took us to Mechelen on the Dijle and on the Dijle-Leuven canal. We were on the canal and set off from Mechelen towards Leuven, stopping on the way at a quiet-out-of-the-way mooring next to Silos (very posh) restaurant.

It was a short journey, with only one minor event when one of the doors of a lock would not shut behind us. Luckily the guys were there working on the lock, and after changing a fuse (literally) all came back to life.

The restaurant being a bit expensive for our pocket we walked the kilometre back to the lock to find a bar, passing a roosting cormorant along the way. I liked the fact that our drinks were similar colours, though different size glasses (mine was pineau de charentes).

Back aboard we were treated to yet another ‘skies-on-fire’ Belgian sunset

Our peaceful mooring was only slightly disturbed in the morning by the passing of Marvik – just a gentle sway as she passed by.

After breakfast we were off on the last few kilometres to Leuven – just 15 and 1 lock. Just outside Leuven we passed the old Remy tower, with its newer, but still old, one behind. This is not a testament to cognac but to grain. We had been warned, by Flanders waterways, that we might pass the trials of a model commercial barge – and we did!

Then into Leuven, past the new Stella Artois brewery – photos of the old brewery to come!

Having allowed myself extra photos when in an interesting city, I feel I can add in a few here. Day 1 in Leuven easily used up our 10,000 steps per day. The centre of town was very busy with students arriving for university, queuing up to register, meeting friends and cyclin around finding their accommodation. But we found some quite corners too.

The botanical garden, Kruidtuin, was especially peaceful and beautiful.

On the way back to the boat we found, first, a relatively quiet bar, and secondly an Indian restaurant – not exactly Belgian, but very good. Then back to our mooring in the basin at the end of the canal, with the old Stella Artois brewery being dismantled astern of us.

Stella Artois is inextricably linked to Leuven, after a Mr Artois, head brewer at the Den Hoorne brewery, bought the brewery, changed the name to Artois, and grew from then on to the mega global business that it is today. I visited the brewery shown in these photos back in 1987, and remember well the gate posts topped by the lanterns that became part of the Stella image; all now rather dusty and sad. But the beer tastes good!

Day 2 in Leuven we walked up the wooded hill above the harbour, and then on through the city to the groot (big) beguinhof. For those new to the word beguinhof, they are areas which were created to house beguines – lay religious women who lived in their own community without taking vows or retiring from the world, and often offering shelter to single women and their children who needed safe shelter from the world.

In a way similar to Oxford, Leuven is a University city full of separate colleges, each with their own fabulous old buildings and gateways. I could have filled a blog just with these, but chose instead on building, one gate-way, and students thronging the streets, all correctly wearing their anti-coronavirus masks.

Our beverage intake that evening was in four stages. First we found a bar that I had discovered sold my favourite Kriek beer – aged old red by Petrus. Then we sat beneath the old Stella brewery partaking of the famous brew. Back on board, quietly preparing our evening meal. we were visited by a waitress for the Florida bar that we were moored against. She brought us complementary cocktails and a dish of grilled green mini-peppers! This was a total surprise, so stage four was to go ashore and join the owner of the bar and his friends for a round or two more! I slept well that night.

Next day we left Leuven, but I would happily return and certainly recommend it to visitors, whether by boat or other means. Out we went past the massive new brewery, through misty locks, and on to the zoo. Yes, there is a zoo outside Mechelen and there is a pleasant quiet mooring nearby. If there is anything to unsettle the calm it might be a passing big boat, so the Captain watched carefully as the first one arrived – but virtually no disturbance at all.

The tides were right for us to leave the Leuven-Dijle canal within the next few days so we set off towards the northern end of the canal, stopping for a short visit back to Mechelen as we passed through. Being beginhof and brewery fans we managed to see both – the brewery being the one that brewed the special bottle Stu bought last time we were in town, and the beginhof being what was left of quite a small one. Lunch was a light-bite treat, my hummus on toast looking like a work of art and very ‘leaker’ (tasty).

As a souvenir I bought myself a Mechelen mask – such are these strange times. Then off down, or was it up, the canal we went.

We went to the end of the canal and moored up just before Zennegat lock. What a change; when we came through here on the other direction a week before it was misty, rainy, and generally gloomy. This time we could enjoy the landscape.

Zennegat is where the rivers Dijle and Zenne meet, with the canal beginning right between them at the confluence, with a nature park right alongside as well.

Here is an aerial view (not my photo) showing the Zenne above, canal central and the edge of the Dijle on the right.

The view across to Calliope on my evening promenade

We had a definite plan to just have one night at Zennegat, but two things conspired to change our mind. One was the pure delight of being there. The other, more important, was hearing out of the blue from friends on a Piper boat who we had not seen for almost 6 years when they set off across the Channel and we were going round the Kent coast for our winter in Portsmouth Harbour. Gerald and Janet were arriving at the next day to begin their own cruise down to Leuven.

And arrive they did, mooring up in front us on their new Piper boat Affinity (their third!) – causing us to look a little on the scruffy side!

Looking down the Dijle from the confluence

Our second day at Zennegat was a lovely mixture of time with Affinity crew, and time walking next to all the nature. Leaving their boat, perfectly sober, the wind caught our map and into the canal it fell, quickly followed by the Captain’s reading glasses. The former was recovered and dried; the latter were not.

At 11.45 we slipped our ropes and left our mooring in calm clear waters and skies.

The first obstacle is a pedestrian/cyclists bridge that opens in quite an unusual fashion – very slowly too.

Then into the last of our double-oval locks, this time with a slidey pole for the rope.

We dropped down two or three metres – obviously a variable depth because we were off out onto a tidal river, with the last hour or so of outgoing tide.

And there we were, set loose on the river current.

Well I’m sorry, but the days on the rivers had too much going on for the five photo restriction; I really tried, but you would have missed too much. So here goes..

First we were on the Dijle, but not for long. We soon joined the Rupel, and before long we began to see navigation lights atop tall poles, hinting at the changing tide depth and mudbanks each side.

A further 12 kilometres and we were joining the Zeeschelde, hopefully as the tide started to turn and carry us up towards Ghent.

Initially it seems quite a hard push, and although Calliope’s engine was more than a match for the waters we made relatively slow progress.

Then, as slack water time arrived, we moved faster up this broad river. It was a Sunday so little commercial traffic around – just buoys to mark our channel and ….

…. a few Sunday leisure craft leaving his well in their wake.

We had set off at 1145, expecting to be at our Dender turn-off by around 1600, and knowing that the locks stopped operating at 1800 on a Sunday. So we were very pleased to see this gloomy but welcoming sight – Dendermonde lock – at about 1730. In, up and out, all within about 15 minutes.

We were back on the gentle Dender, where amazingly, and truly, 20 minutes after leaving the lock the sun had come out. There was an initial disappointment – we found the pontoon occupied, but the timber piles just beyond were ready and waiting for us and actually became our preferred place to tie up

Monday was a lovely autumn day. We walked down the old Dender into Dendermonde and found it was market day. In addition to buying one or two essentials we bought yummy hot dogs and sat down by the river to eat them listening to the carillon from the local church.

The evening with Calliope was so peaceful, only ‘disturbed’ by a laden barge gliding by, scarcely ruffling the water as she passed.

We were up and at it earlier than usual the following morning; I had asked the Dendermonde lock keeper the best time to leave and catch the tide up to Ghent, and this meant casting off at 7.45 – when I am normally in bed drinking tea, or asleep!

We were quickly through the lock – at high tide a drop of only 1m – and about to join the Zeeschelde.

It was a mucky start! The water running off the rising guillotine style lock door was full of mud! We were totally splattered!

I did manage to get it quite a bit cleaner as we went along, but closer inspection led to plenty more work once we were in Gent!

It took less than 2 hours to reach Merelbeke lock, whizzing along at up to 14 kph at times and almost twice our normal cruising speed. The voyage was fine though – we passed interesting looking small towns, a few commercial craft from large barges to small ferries, and plenty of countryside. If you get the tides right there is nothing to fear from this trip.

We continued round the Ring Vaart – the waterway ‘ring road’ of Ghent – until we reached the much smaller Brugse Vaart where we had decided to turn off and head into the city – only to discover our progress suddenly arrested by an unmarked mud bank caused, as we found out later, by the wash from the large commercial vessels powering round the corners to Brugge and Ghent Seaport. It wasn’t a big issue though, as the bow wave from the first commercial gave us enough lift to reverse off the bank and back into free water.

This was a new route for us into the city and we looked forward to some new sights. There were plenty of good places for houseboats to moor, many of them old working boats.

One of these was the ….. bridge – an interesting road bridge on a central turn table, with a fixed pedestrian bridge above. Sadly the light was all wrong to get a good photo of this but I hope you get the gist.

Then we came to Tollhuissluis – a lock that was due to close a few days later but we sneaked through beforehand. It’s the first time I have been in a lock with a tram running alongside I think (yes it is there through the trees). And the bollards were set at a deliberate angle that I have not seen before either.

The final approach was through some lovely old docks and a right hand turn down a pretty short canal into Portus Ganda…..

…. and our mooring on Roodtorenkaai.

We stayed for a week in Ghent, getting to know the city much better, partly thanks to our friend Mieke who lives (with husband Frans) on boat their Dreamer in Ghent and is herself and is an official city guide!

So here are just a few images from our stay.

We walked round the city a lot. I have taken so many photos of Ghent on previous visits that these are an odd jumble of images, including one at the Friday Market.