Wanderlust and Words

I visited some outstanding museums in Europe that definitely weren’t your standard, run-of-the-mill affair. MAS Museum, Antwerp The MAS Museum is located in Antwerp’s port area and highlights the city’s past, its river, and its port. The first thing you notice is its height. It’s over 10 stories tall with a panorama viewing station on the top floor and walls of windows on every floor. The museum is not only about the port – it’s part of it. Each floor has a different theme and is absolutely jam-packed with material to illustrate that theme – from –in-the-round videos of political leaders to toilets you can sit on (reading material provided). My favorite floor was Food and the City. Maps showed how food sources had switched from local to global. There were displays of food that had been imported through the port – and of the brawny port workers. And, at the other end of the process, there was a lineup of toilets through the ages. You couldn’t possibly absorb all the informat...

It was late afternoon when I arrived in Ghent, Belgium, and it was dusk by the time I’d settled into my accommodation and started walking downtown. Perfect timing as it turns out as Ghent illuminates all its oldest buildings, turning the old city centre into a magical world after dark. The old buildings, along canals or tucked away in corners, were just as lovely in the next morning’s sunlight. Ghent has a long history of manufacturing wool and cotton cloth and shipping it out from its port, connected to the city by two rivers. At one point, it rivalled Paris in size and importance. Today, it’s a lively town with 70,000 students. I’m sure there were tourists in the mix, but they didn’t overwhelm the locals. I was grateful that so many people spoke English (the official language is Flemish) – from bus drivers to restaurant staff. I walked until my legs ached and could barely move (cobblestones!) and loved every minute of it.