Gent festival

07/18/09 Weather was supposed to be wet so I took train to Gent. As it turned out the weather was great for the midsummer festival of the city. 

 I did not know what I was getting into. 3rd largest festival in Europe averaging 250,000 visitors per day. The whole old town was turned over to the fest, with a 2 hour parade, buskers, lots of music stages, food, drink, rides, brass bands, brassy blondes, brasseries, violin/cello duo, another folky band including an English horn, cross dressing men about, Belgian feminist drum troupe, African Christian soka (?) band, line dance lessons (not for me – no international incidents are permitted), traditional folk featuring an accordian, kazoo virtuosos, dogs, acrobats, stilt walkers, and more. 

The brotherhood of Emperor Charles sells pieces of black and white rope looped into hangman noose – gotta ask about that. There is theatre, jazz fest, art, second hand street market, and more. Gent city has 250,000 population and double that including suburbs. It has rail, light rail/tram, bus, (tour) boats and what looks like 4x the commercial area of Mpls. I assume there is no “Gent-dale” or Mall of Belgium to drain the city. 

The architecture is similar to Bruges, Amsterdam, Brussels, as you may expect. Other than walking about and taking in the festival, I only did one touristy thing – went into St. Bavos Cathedral; saw a Rubens but did not pay the 3 E to go into see a masterpiece painting by van Eck. Maybe next time I'll do that and head down into the crypt and look at other sights. The festival goes on for 10 days – Tuesday is the national holiday – maybe I'll go there for that – will see if I can interpret the schedule of events. Last train comes back at 10:15 so late night events are out. 

 Some will be interested to know that: “The city promotes a meat-free day on Thursdays called Veggiedag[4][5], with vegetarian-only food in public canteens for civil servants and elected concillors, soon in all schools, and promotion of vegetarian eating options in town (through the distribution of "veggie street maps"). This campaign is linked to the recognition of the detrimental environmental effects of meat production, which the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization has established to represent nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.”