Pictures From the Belgium Trip, August 1985

I mentioned yesterday about finding a small treasure of old family photographs that I unearthed recently, while cleaning my parent's old house. 

Well, there were some pleasant surprises among my finds with pictures. But perhaps among the best surprises were a couple of pictures from the trip to Belgium, with a short side trip to some border town in Holland, that my Aunt Nicole took my brother and I on back in August of 1985. 

The top picture was apparently taken in that border town in Netherlands. It was marked as "Holst Hollande Août 85" by whoever marked the picture. I did a little bit of research online, and believe that the name of the town is actually Hulst, in the province of Zeeland, Netherlands. We visited the town a little bit, and then visited some friends of my aunt's. If memory serves correctly, we also had lunch or dinner there, although my own memory of it is a bit fuzzy. I was very young at the time. 

The second picture is of Ghent, in Belgium. I am almost sure of it, although again, whoever marked the back of the picture wrote in a way that is difficult to read, and may have misspelled the name of the town. But the end of the name, -ent, comes out clearly, and the town that immediately springs to mind is, of course, Ghent. When I looked up pictures of public squares in Ghent, I was able to spot some pictures that looked very much like this square, with the statues and the churches pretty clearly visible. I believe that is me seated on the bench, although I am small and difficult to see. But the blue and gray jacket I was wearing was one of the jackets I remember from my childhood, and I was obviously there with my aunt and my brother. So it makes sense that I would have been in this picture, unless it was some other young kid with a jacket that looked exactly like mine at the time.

This particular picture was taken at Vrijdagmarkt (Dutch: vrɛi̯dɑɣmɑrkt), which translates roughly to Friday Market Square. It is in historic district of Ghent, Belgium. According to Wikipedia:

It is named after the weekly tradition to stage a market every Friday morning. As one of the oldest squares in Ghent, it played an important role in the city's history.

Additionally, here is what Wikipedia says about the statue, which kind of dominates this square:

The centerpiece of the plaza is the statue of Jacob van Artevelde, Ghent's wise man who sided with England during the Hundred Years' War and was murdered on the site in 1345.

There were other cities and places in Belgium that we visited, which were memorable for me (and presumably my brother) during that memorable trip, which I believe was over the course of three or four days, possibly an extended weekend (although I do not believe there is any way to be sure about that anymore). I was particularly impressed with Bruges, but also enjoyed Antwerp and Brussels, where I specifically remember visiting the Manneken Pis (literally translates to "Manneken Piss" in English), which is a famous local statue of, as the name implies, a boy pissing. My brother and I thought that was an absolute riot at the time. Also, I clearly remember visiting the Atomium, also in Brussels. Wish we had pictures of some of those places from back then! It is not entirely impossible that some may yet be found. Who knows?

In any case, both of these pictures are scratched up. Still, they are clearly visible, and were a pleasant reminder of that nice trip through Belgium, and into one Dutch town, back in August of 1985. I did not even know that these pictures existed, so they came as a real pleasant surprise. 

Holland and Belgium trip,  August 1985

The quotes used in the above blog entry were taken from the Vrijdagmarkt, Ghent Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrijdagmarkt,_Ghent