Side trips to West Flanders

While relaxing in Wannegem has certainly been pleasant, Nancy and I felt the need to move. We took daily bike rides through the countryside and a couple of side trips to western Flanders.

A couple of months ago we had dinner with our friend Alexander at the Avanti pizza place. They served a Belgian ale by de Dolle Brewers called Oerbier. It hit all the right notes for a good belgian, so I looked up the brewery and we visited. De Dolle means 'mad brewers'. The brewery was started by a few college friends back in 1980 and they've been brewing ever since. They still have no employees. Every few weeks the families gather to bottle and crate together. They now turn out 500,000 bottles per year with no plans for expansion. Chris showed me around the place and we were able to enjoy a great beer from the tap before heading back 'home'.

Another day we accompanied Manu and Katelijn to the area around Ypres to visit a recent art installation located in a regional park that was once a notorious WW1 battlefield. The artist, Koen Vanmechelen, puts chickens at the center of most of his works. The eggs represent the lives of the soldiers lost in that conflict. The large egg at the center represents rebirth. Afterwards we dropped by our old haunt on the Kemmelberg for refreshment.Read more