Wandering Browns

St. Bavo's Cathedral under scaffolding St. Bavo's Cathedral was on my short list of things to see in Ghent. This cathedral was undergoing external renovations, and pictures were not allowed inside, so above is my only picture from our time there. The whole piece, open, with a neat article  here One of the main reasons I wanted to visit St. Bavo's was to visit the altar piece "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by the Van Eyck brothers. Hubert Van Eyck was commissioned to do the painting, and then Jan, the younger, more famous brother, finished it after his brother's death. Their paintings are very rare, and this specific piece has been through a lot since it was painted in the 1400's. It is a giant altar piece with many panels. Landon was getting fussy and needing a nap, so Austin, being a wonderful husband, took him for a walk in the stroller while I purchased the extra ticket to get in to see the altar piece. With ticket purchase came a fr...

Gravensteen Castle means "Castle of the Counts" in Dutch. I don't know if I have been living under a rock, but in Belgium, the top part of the country speaks Dutch, and the bottom half speaks French. I'm not sure when I missed that memo. So, during our time in Gent, things were mostly in Dutch, and as we made our way to Brussels, I started to be able to understand more as it switched to more French.  Climbing the tower! I was so excited to visit this particular castle because it looked exactly how I would draw a castle, with the square top battlements and all old stone stacked on one another. This castle was built in 1180 by Count Philip of Alsace. As we entered through the gate of the castle, the modern ticket booth with bathroom facilities came into view. That was the only modern structure in the whole castle compound! This attraction was not stroller friendly, so we parked our stroller in the ticket office and climbed the stairs to the gift shop/aud...