There is a very high steeple in Steenvoorde. You can see it for miles. The church, on the other hand, is not so easy to see. Dwarfed by the massive tower, it is never visible from the roads to and away from, the town. At 92 metres, it’s reported to be the tallest steeple in Flanders. From where we were sitting, it looked like it was attached to the smallest church.
We drove around and through Steenvoord on our way to the amazing Beershop in Cuvelier. If heaven was a supermarket, this would be it.
This is a regular Weasel stop for beer supplies. There are a lot of types (no Poppel though) in all manner of flavours. For instance, the pink bottles above contain strawberry flavoured beer. Not that I’m condoning such an evil concoction.
Which reminds me that Lorna and Darren tried a religieuse this morning. They said it was very nice but a bit too rich for them. Subsequently, they ate two thirds of one, leaving the final third to languish, godless in the fridge.
During the day we received quite a few weather reports from a snow laden UK. While it all looked quite pretty, the infrastructure was not coping. Well, the lack of infrastructure, really.
While it was cold here in St Omer, it didn’t snow and, as cold as it was, four of us managed to go up on the ferris wheel in the town square. While it was great fun, the highlight of the market square was the parade of bears (and not bears) which featured pandas, a polar bear and a ridiculously stoned koala who refused to dance.
This insanity was only matched by the man we saw along a road in Flanders riding a bicycle with one hand on the handlebar and the other gripping a big bunch of leeks. His progress was a bit wobbly, to say the least. Maybe he’d had breakfast where we had lunch.
Bernard’s Bar is a restaurant attached to St Bernardus Brewery. They have quite the extensive beer menu. Actually, the beer menu is more extensive than the food. Mind you, there is only the one non-alcoholic beer which, to my way of thinking, is probably something they felt they had to do. I do wonder if they sell any of it.
Three of us had deer stew while the other two had a massive goats cheese salad each. The food was delicious but there was an awful lot of it. Far too much for an ordinary person, anyway.
The beer, obviously, was excellent. The brewery is surrounded by hop fields so the journey from field to bottle is not very far. I opted for a blonde Wipers Times (mainly because of the WWI connection) while the others had different strength beers depending on who was driving. Anthea, who had spent a fair bit of time throwing up her lunch from yesterday, couldn’t finish her beer but, otherwise, the beer was superb.
Of course, the Weasels have been there before. Darren wore his St Bernardus jumper today to prove it. He looked very snuggly.
After lunch we headed back to St Omer. Well, John and I did. The others felt the need to visit the super duper supermarket again. Mind you, they managed to squeeze in a WWI graveyard on the way which I would quite liked to have seen.
It was originally a Casualty Clearing Station and features an interesting and varied collection of graves. Still, maybe next time.
Back at the house we waited for the others before heading into the cathedral for an ecclesiastical wander. Lorna shook a bit when she saw a nun (Darren wondered if she was full of custard) but otherwise it was all very interesting. There was a Joan, so I was pleased.
There was also an interesting etching of a cardinal holding his head while meeting the baby Jesus. The inscription at the bottom was in difficult to read Latin, so I have no idea who it represents. While the cathedral website is quite comprehensive, it’s not that easy to translate. Or easy to navigate.
The cathedral is all a bit Gothic so I guess the image is in keeping with that. And, of course, there was a Joan.
We followed our church tour by going on the big wheel before having a final couple of beers in the Queen Victoria.
Back at the house, Darren commented on the frightening, giant nutcracker in the front room of the house. He felt the evil looking creature surely needed appeasing in order for us to rest easy in our beds.
And that made two blog titles supplied by the Hilborns. Excellent work, people.
