My first week in Belgium!

Last week we did a day trip to the North Sea at a sea shore in France.  Along the way, I saw my first REAL (and very old) windmill...it was amazing!  And how convenient was it that there were flower beds full of tulips close to it?!

We continued on to the seashore, to a spot where you could look across the English Channel and see the white cliffs of Dover.  It was a little hazy and my pictures didn't show the cliffs but here's a few of the beach where we had a picnic and a snooze in the sun.

We stopped for coffee (as usual) on the way back in a little village in France and I snapped a few shots of the red clay tile rooftops.  I'm so inspired here and I think photography, combined with some sort of mixed media artwork could be in the future...lol..

Not that my photography is anything to get excited about (yet, anyway...lol) but I can picture using these rooftops somehow...

I also got to see an amazing art exhibition of a Belgian symbolist painter, Gustave van de Woestyne at the art museum here in Gent.  This was one of my favorite paintings...

and I managed to get myself in trouble there, as well... So typical for me...lol.  Apparently I got "TOO CLOSE!" to one of the paintings and a little twerp who worked for the museum freaked out and came over and lectured me in Dutch.  When he finished his big warning, I told him I didn't understand a word he said.  I DID get a little satisfaction out of that! LOL..  Actually, all I had done was point at something in a painting, but apparently he thought my finger was a combo finger/switchblade or something.........sigh..... lol

Another day, we took a walk through the city and I saw this huge cat looking out an even "huger" window of the second story, watching all the activity below. 

A few last pics of an ancient abbey very close to here, in ruins now, but absolutely wonderful!

Stay tuned for Week Two, which included a trip to the Netherlands AND a fabulous antique shop I found!