This was the alter piece in the Jerusalem Church. The piece features a vast array of instruments of torture. I am not sure if the message was pro or con.
Out in the close park with all the younger Baker's
This is a remnant of the old city wall, the first bit I had seen, with houses reflected in a partly frozen canal.
He really likes his keyboard.
Note the slight forehead wound. All a part of being a pre two baby.
A Happy Merry Christmas was had by all.
The unmanned plane bomb (V1) in the foreground and the V2 rocket in the background. Both caused horrible death and destruction in London.
William reading a panel in the catacombs of La Coupole. Werner Von Braum was the scientist in charge here. Remember him from the US space program?
This huge concrete construction was quite bomb proof. A very thick concrete shell was poured over a chalk hill and then the chalk was excavated from underneath to make the huge work areas.
We spent most of our stay in the Eulenspeigel Museum. This mythological jester was said to have been born in Damme. Many funny stories about his life were first written down in 1500.
Some of the trenches were like underground villages, very difficult to maintain in the wet. 
Winston Churchill said he would like to have Ieper remain as a memorial to all the British troops who died there, but the people of Ieper rebuilt their city. The museum is in the old Cloth Hall.
The Ieper Cathedral was also leveled and rebuilt. This is a bust of St. Nicholas in the cathedral.
Uber alles is the logo of Flemish nationalism "Alles Vor Vlamish, Vlamish vor Krest" (All for Flemish, Flemish for Christ.)
Twenty two plus stories up you get a great panorama of Diksmunde and the surrounding countryside. The historical parts of the museum about WWI were very well done with interior replicas of the trenches, underground living/dying and static warfare that marked the war until the Americans got involved.
The large open ward looked a lot like modern cubes with boxes for each patient. Patients were segregated by male, female, and dying. You went from your cube in the dying section to a section outside. This painting was a depiction of the wards.
Transportation in and around the hospital (at least while you were alive) was by sedan chair.
In the chapel William was quite fascinated by the reliquary of Saint Ursula which pictured her martyrdom. She was a Breton princess who was scheduled to marry the King of England (around the 5th century). She asked for three years off prior to the wedding to visit the Pope with 11,000 virgins, who were recent converts to Christianity. The visit was such a great success that the Pope traveled with them on the return voyage. They got as far as Cologne. The dreaded Huns had just conquered Cologne. They killed the Pope and the maidens and when Ursula would not marry the chief Hun, they killed her too. Drat that Attila.
The now closed hospital houses many of the great works of Hans Memling. The audioguide is indispensable.
Then you have hot chocolate plain or spiked.
Wow is it windy at the North Sea in the winter.
The baby made cute footprints in the sand.
We lunched, snacked, and shopped in Sluis on the border, then just pointed the GPS to the sea. It was windy enough that I had a sand snack. Gritty Gritty.
Axel is learning to stack his new blocks.
Frank models his new T-shirt from the Bier Temple.
The girls helped Robbin eat her chocolate house.
Bill says "Now Axel don't touch the flame like you see me doing." Axel says "Grandpa, I know that is HOT."
the bridal veil was originally used to disguise the bride so as to make her unrecognizable for witches...This cathedral had a wall repaired with modern block and windows.
Upon entering the new house, the bride was carried over the threshold..around the chimney crook...The chimney was seen as the residence of the household genii. By letting the bride look into the chimney or by leading her around the crook, one presented her to those household genii...
To prevent the dead person from carrying off domestic happiness, locks of hair and small bits of the nails of hands and feet were taken away and kept in the family.
Some old houses were in evidence but much of the streets of the town could have passed for the Victorian looking streets in San Francisco.
Axel woke up half way through the folk museum and was playing in the yard after a snack. He found that crab apples looked good when floated in a puddle.
Then on to the castle. This castle was never a pretty place. The gray grim foreboding look was cultivated as the people of Ghent were quite rebellious and were forever having to be beaten, tortured and threatened to stay in line. Apparently it did not help much as room after room in the castle had to be turned into a spare torture room.
Axel liked that strollers had to be left behind and he had to climb up many of the stairs.
William is in line for the guillotine.
Water boarding was one of the routine torture methods.
Up against the wall, Axel.
Look for William up against the far wall.
We finished up our trip at Sint Baafs Cathedral mainly to see the Mystic Lam by van Eyck.
