About this time in 2018 I was biking my way from Bruges, in Belgium, to Amsterdam by day and enjoying the comforts of a small barge by night. My principal objectives for my 28 days in Belgium and the Netherlands was to emerge myself in art, gardens, history and anything else that caught my attention. What I would like to share with you here are some of the gardens I visited and saw and hope that you will enjoy some of the beauty and excitement I experienced.
These were taken in the large town of Merelbeke, in Holland, at the front gate of a castle and provide a glimpse of how the Dutch towns prioritise access as 1. people, 2. bikes, 3. motor vehicles.
Although this garden, the first I visited, was somewhat disappointing the house was not. Like a lot of the places I went to, this museum was authentic and substantially the same building it would have been 400 years ago. Rockox was a wealthy influential merchant in the Spanish Court and a patron of Ruben. This was a time before Belgium and Holland had come into being and these territories were part of the Spanish Empire.