An exhibition themed around public urinals -- in Brussels, not New Albania.

Among the innovations witnessed at Poperinge's triennial pop-up Beer and Hop Festival beer hall in 2014 was the notion of charging a one-time "piss pass" fee for using temporary loos (Euro 1.20), with heavy-duty plastic, open-air pissoirs helpfully available for the gents.

The installation pictured here was festooned with a campaign poster for one of three competing hop queen triads. They're humorously reclined amid hops, and it should be pointed out that their team placed it there for a reason -- to reach the "swing" voter.

Verily, it was all in good fun. Seeing creative teenage hop queen candidates advertising with professionally printed posters on outdoor urinating stations was precisely the sort of thing to remind us that we no longer were experiencing a New Albany state of mind.

And, as this timely article reminds us, the development of the public urinal not only goes back almost 200 years, but references social developments ranging quite far removed from the simple need to relieve oneself while following the path to the next whiskey bar.

Standing room only: Brussels exhibition tells story of public urinals, by Richard Harris (The Bulletin)

In further proof that Brussels’ cultural scene is nothing but varied, an exhibition themed around public urinals is coming to the city later this month.

After runs in Berlin and Paris, LaVallée in Molenbeek presents the exhibition Cottages: Public Toilets, Private Affairs by French photographer/videographer Marc Martin, who describes himself as “one who explores the visibility of sexual minorities and claims a freedom to express – explicit or not – a diversity of practices”.

“By confronting the notions of beauty and repulsion, of good and bad taste, I readjust the level of tolerance, including of the LGBTQI community,” he says.

From 2000: Beercycling beginnings in Poperinge, with previously unpublished photos.

Concurrently with the motor coach beer tours of Europe in 1998 and 1999, I was becoming a quasi-serious bicyclist back home. It was only a matter of time until the lightbulb fired, and when it did, a few of us began planning a bike-oriented trip to Belgium in 2000. We chose three Belgian cities as hubs -- Tournai, Poperinge and Brugge -- with the aim of renting bikes, riding by day and partying at night. 

My beercycling comrades were Kevin Richards, Bob Reed, Buddy Sandbach and Kevin Lowber. We were a quartet during the Tournai stay, which included a day of guided mountain biking, monthly brewing day at the Vapeur museum brewery, and a meeting with the visiting Danish contingent of Kim, Allan and Kim (who were in Belgium for football matches). Lowber joined us in Poperinge for three days in West Flanders.

I've tidied this account from some years back and updated it in places. Most of the photos are mine, but a few are Buddy Sandbach's.

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“The (German) attack had not penetrated to the decisive heights of Cassel and the Mont des Cats, the possession of which would have compelled the (British) evacuation of the Ypres salient and the Yser position. No great strategic movement had become possible, and the Channel ports had not been reached. The second great offensive had not brought about the hoped-for decision.”

--From the official German account of the offensives on the Western Front in 1918, as quoted by John Keegan in his book, The First World War.

Our fatigued foursome arrived by train on Sunday at lunchtime in the Belgian “hop town” of Poperinge, a tidy, friendly place that had the good fortune to remain somewhat safely behind British lines throughout the Great War and thus was spared the wholesale devastation suffered only ten kilometers away in Ieper (Ypres). 

The street called Ieperstraat, which leads from the tiny train station to the center of town, was packed with shoppers, strollers and snackers. The festive atmosphere came as a complete surprise, seeing as stores and shops seldom opened on Sundays in Europe then, but we later learned it was a special annual shopping day, precisely the sort of delightful phenomenon to encourage a few midday beers.

Checking into the legendary Hotel/Restaurant Palace, we found the newly arrived Kevin Lowber carving a massive slab of beef, anxiously awaiting us in the shadow of an equally oversized bottle of red wine. He’d just come into Poperinge from Brussels. 

Biking in and around Poperinge was slated to begin on Monday, and this seemed to merit a map, strategy and tactics session. Adjourning across the hall to the hotel’s cozy world-class beer bar, we discussed the riding itinerary for the coming days.

A plan of attack quickly fell into place. Monday would take us to Ieper for a ride through the battlefield sites south and east of town. 

On Tuesday, we would meet Luc Dequidt, chief of Poperinge’s amazingly comprehensive tourist bureau, for a two-wheeled tour of local attractions, hopefully to include the tasting cafe near the St. Sixtus abbey (home of the scrumptious Westvletern Trappist ales); the brewing town of Watou; the Helleketel forest: and row after row of the tall hop trellises that take on a life of their own each three years during the town’s hop festival.

Wednesday was chosen as the day for us to assay what German military might had failed to achieve more than a century earlier: Seize the heights of Mont des Cats and Cassel. From our Poperinge base, this projected foray into France wouldn’t be altogether difficult, totaling less than 30 miles roundtrip; more importantly, it would provide a glimpse of northern French beer culture, which naturally was my ulterior motive all along.

Riding east towards Ieper on Monday, the French hills almost always could be seen rising on the horizon to the southwest, and although they aren’t particularly lofty, the default flatness of Flanders magnifies their significance. 

One can readily understand their strategic importance in wartime. There were constant reminders of combat on Monday, as our journey took us past numerous Great War monuments and cemeteries of the British Commonwealth forces, whose final resting places attest to the global scale of the First World War: Irish, Australian, Canadian and Indian soldiers, buried alongside lads from Manchester and Newcastle. The resting places of Belgian, French and German soldiers also were seen.

Monday’s lunch sag came in the center of Ieper, a town utterly devastated from 1914-1918, then painstakingly rebuilt in the years preceding the next world conflagration. 

When the second war swept through Belgium, one young Ieper native resolved to escape. He made it somehow to the then-colony of Belgian Congo, and later to South Africa, where he enlisted in the British armed forces and fought against the German occupiers until war’s end in 1945. 

After returning home he founded a restaurant and pub, sold it, then opened another, called Ter Posterie for its location opposite Ieper’s post office.

I can’t remember this man’s name, and certainly he would have no reason to remember mine, but nonetheless I met him on three different occasions, all in all, and enjoyed the long beer list, savory food and consistent hospitality at Ter Posterie, where we convened at the terrace that day in 2000 and discussed our progress. 

By 2000, active control of the business had long since passed to his daughter, but the old man still frequented the establishment, and when glimpsing an English speaker, would spin his life story for the visitor in a narrative honed over thousands of ale-side retellings. 

Sadly, during subsequent trips, Ter Posterie’s colorful founder was observed to be sadly descending into advanced dementia, and since passed way, as has Ter Posterie. Both will be remembered fondly. 

--- 

Tuesday’s riding schedule was light, but rich in intangibles owing to the presence of Luc and his wife. We kept a leisurely pace on the country lanes radiating from Poperinge, never very far from the smell of manure and the sight of hops. It was a pub crawl on human-powered wheels: Westvleteren 12-degree Trappist at the terrace of the then-newly built tasting café opposite the abbey, through the woods and fields to the fabled “brewing village” of Watou and refreshing Witbier from the small town’s Van Eecke brewery, then south and east via wooded lanes back to Poperinge.

At the edge of the Helleketel forest there used to be a delightful small brewery and tasting café known as the Bie, which has relocated twice (to Loker, then Dentergem) during the period since we rode past in 2000 and found it closed on Tuesday. If memory serves, we got inside in 2001 and 2002.

Amazingly, yet another brewery is located near Watou, which is really no more than a collection of houses: St. Bernardus, which used to produce beer by contract for the monks of St. Sixtus under the Sixtus name. The contract was terminated, and the brewery began to brew its own line of abbey-style ales that arguably is the finest of all secular recreations.

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Wednesday proved to be the highlight of the Poperinge interlude, with the group primed for climbing the two French hills and having lunch in Cassell. 

Arriving winded at the summit of the Mont des Cats, we saw a conveniently situated Trappist monastery, which might have provided liquid incentive had it been situated a few miles north in Belgium. Unfortunately, there are no Trappist-certified breweries in France, so instead the monastery makes acclaimed cheeses and butter, some of which were destined for sampling later at our midday feast.

(As of 2011, the monastery at Mont des Cats has licensed a Trappist Ale brewed by the makers of Chimay. It does not bear the Trappist appellation because brewing does not occur at Mont des Cats.)

For beer, one must descend the Mont des Cats and proceed to the small town of St. Sylvestre Cappell, home to the brewery that produces Trois Monts, or “three mountains”: Mont des Cats and Mont Cassell (in France) and Mont Noir (in Belgium). 

Trois Monts is exemplary proof that good beer and France are not mutually exclusive, although this view continues to be held by many otherwise intelligent and discerning beer aficionados, whose Francophobia is permitted to hold sway at the expense of their taste buds.

They’re missing good things. Bieres de garde perhaps are best understood as a sort of appellation of origin, describing beers from northern France, but beyond that there are few hard and fast rules. 

Often they are made with top-fermenting yeast, but not always. Usually they are aged in a process akin to lagering. Colors and strengths range across the spectrum. Many, but not all, are bottled in 750 ml corked bottles. If there is any one characteristic that seems common among the better French bieres de garde, it is a richly complex malt character. These are beers that taste fine alone, but better when they accompany food.

Thus, having scaled the heights of the Mont des Cats and scrambled down the other side in pursuit of a restorative glass of Trois Monts, we found it in a tiny roadside café where the proprietor spoke no English but was happy to learn that we weren’t “English”, and who seemed amused by our interest in the local brew. 

Temporarily sated, our final and more formidable objective lay before us: Cassel, the town straddling the top of the hill of the same name.

A half-hour’s ride along the highway brought us to the foot of the hill, and we began the winding ascent that culminated in the town’s main square. A narrow lane took us further toward the top, ending in a wooded park with a large windmill situated to our left. I knew from previous research that this was the Grail, for located just beneath the windmill was our real reason for coming: T' Kasteel Hof.

The windmill is the highest point in Flanders, with unobstructed views far and wide even on a hazy day, and the café just below it, one that clings to the side of the steep hill, is considered one of the finest beer cafés in France. I’ve been to few others, but it would be difficult to imagine any better. 

(Admittedly, I'm several years out of practice. Craft revolution, and all.)

T’ Kasteel Hof specializes in all things local. The food is from French Flanders, as are the beers. We found seats on the patio after walking through the crowded main room, where spontaneous applause greeted our entrance; bowing in appreciation of this unexpected acknowledgement of our collective biking prowess, we were disappointed to learn that the group of senior citizens actually was applauding a speech of some sort by one of its own.

Instructed that the kitchen was being overloaded by the tour group and only cold food was available, each of us opted for a mixed cheese and pate plate. Three would have sufficed for all five beercyclists, such was the size of the portions. Three 750 ml bottles of French Bieres de Garde were shared: Hommelpap (four hop varieties, earthy and a moderate 7% abv), Kasteel (the house ale) and Pot Flamand, the latter two falling on the sweetly malty side of the flavor spectrum, as I expected.

As if a convivial atmosphere, bountiful food and delicious beer weren’t reason enough to seek out t’ Kasteel Hoff, the pub also boasts a shop for carry-out sales: Bieres de garde, local honey and jam, liqueurs, post cards and souvenirs -- more of each than any of us were able to carry, and Kevin Lowber drew the short straw in this regard: He had made the mistake of bringing his backpack, which was filled with booty gathered by the others, our rental bikes being unequipped with panniers or hauling apparatus.

With ground to cover back to Poperinge and expressing ample regrets over having to leave so soon, we lugged our booty to the bikes and debarked in a meandering northeasterly direction, enjoying the countryside and melting away the lunchtime caloric intake. The group seemed hale and hearty, except perhaps Buddy, and therein is yet another story.

On the night preceding our Cassell reconnoitering, after benedictory drinks with Luc, we’d dined as a group in the Hotel Palace’s restaurant and enjoyed several bottles of French red wine with the uniformly excellent meats, breads and pastas.

After dinner, adjourning once again to the nearby bar and seeking the inimitable service provided by Guy, the owner, Kevin Richards elected to continue drinking wine. For reasons that remain obscure to this very day, Buddy felt emboldened to undertake an impossible task, attempting to match Kevin bottle for bottle.

Knowing better from previous experiences, the remainder of the contingent nursed our Belgian ales and retired to bed early in preparation for the big day. 

For those readers who have witnessed such ill-conceived ventures in the past, it should come as no surprise that during our ascent of the two French hills, Buddy began to perceive the error of his ways, particularly during lunch, when he was overheard to remark that a nap would feel good. On the ride back to Poperinge, Buddy was flagging. For a while, it seemed that Bob (our unofficial chaplain) might have to offer last rites, but he rallied and finished the course.

A meal on the main square at Café Paix and a few ales at a pub during the evening’s televised Euro Cup soccer match capped off a long and fruitful day. Not for the first time, I asked myself why it had taken me so long to discover the joys of biking in Europe.

As a reminder, once every three years (2020's renewal has been rescheduled for 2021) Poperinge celebrates its heritage of hops with a festival that captures the attention of beer lovers throughout the world, but remains consummately local in orientation, with much of the town actively participating in the fun. 

The town welcomes visitors at all times, not only during the festival, and it is hard to overstate the many charms of the area, especially for those infatuated with Belgian beer. Poperinge is eternally relaxed and efficient. 

As has happened so many times since, it was with grudging reluctance that my friends and I group departed on Thursday morning, walking back up Ieperstraat to board the train to Brugge and travel to the final phase of a remarkable trip.

ON THE AVENUES: Stuck inside of Nawbany with the Flanders blues again.

I’ve never denied the extent to which angst and aimlessness characterized my early twenties. Somehow I had stumbled through university and emerged with a degree. Beyond this, my future was a big fat question mark.

At some point in 1983, I decided the answer was to take a trip to Europe.

It took almost two years to save enough money to finance this seemingly crackpot solution, but in 1985 I managed to go and do it. As crazy as it sounds now, those three months in Europe on less than $25 a day opened my eyes and meant far more to me than a Europhile in the making merely scratching an itch.

Only afterward did I come to understand how planning the trip, working to finance it, and actually achieving such a goal on my very own time and dime finally provided a sense of direction utterly missing before. It was a first step in the process of finding myself. 

Granted, I was extremely fortunate to have an opportunity to make these European crusades the focus of my life for almost a decade. I know it. I’m thankful for it.

But it’s equally true that once smitten, I worked hard as hell to make my excursions into educational seminars abroad rather than leisurely vacations. For me, they were the equivalent of graduate school. 

Accordingly, I always tried as best I could to teach, and to pass along to others what I’d learned while roaming abroad. A few years later when my passion for travel merged with good beer as a viable career, one might say that the myriad possibilities for a cultural fusion became clear.  

I was alone while traveling in Europe in 1985, apart from a few days with my cousin. As the years passed, friends and family increasingly became involved. My affiliation with the Public House began in earnest in 1992, and with it came an exponential broadening of a circle of friends sharing an interest in beer and brewing.

By 1995, I was toying with the idea of learning about beer by putting together little groups of these friends, using public transportation. The first trip came in spring when seven of us chased beers in Prague and Bavaria. That same year in fall a quartet convened In Belgium, and in 1997, another itinerary for five took us to Germany and Czech Republic.

My confidence steadily grew. European beer industry connections were developing nicely thanks to the Public House. In 1998 the time was right to push things up a notch.

I contacted a Belgian mom ‘n’ pop motorcoach company and started making arrangements for a spring group tour through Netherlands and Belgium, visiting numerous beer shrines and absorbing much local non-yeast culture along with them. 16 persons signed up, which was enough to make the money work.

Key point: be sure the bus has a toilet. 

Somehow, most likely via Tim Webb’s Good Beer Guide, a hitherto unknown locale called Poperinge, tucked obscurely into a corner of Belgium near the French border, came to my attention. I’d almost made it there in 1995 during a daytrip from Brugge to Ieper (Ypres), the Great War battleground, but there wasn’t enough time. Now, in 1998, Poperinge seemed promising.

Intrigued, I duly contacted the Poperinge tourist office (was it newfangled e-mail yet, or the fax of old?) and learned that they were hip to the gradually escalating possibilities of beer tourism.

A whole plan of operation had been implemented for tour buses filled with inebriates just like us, including a local English-speaking guide, a brewery tour of the Van Eecke brewery in Watou (now called Leroy), beers at a traditional old-school café and the chance to play old-school tavern games there, and admission to the Hop Museum in Poperinge.

This half-day excursion from Ieper seemed perfect for my still cautiously choreographed organizational baby steps, and so I booked it.

The Poperinge visit proved to be a great hit with the group, especially the AuNouveau St.-Eloi rural tavern and de facto community center. There had been an unfortunate fire at the main building just before our arrival, and the whole operation as moved to an adjacent outbuilding, but it was filled with friendly people and a good time was had by all.

(The tavern has since been rebuilt, and the outbuilding is its festival hall.)

Later, back in Poperinge at the hop museum, a complete stranger sidled up to me and asked if my name happened to be Roger. I immediately recalled the scene from the film Top Secret, and the double agent ostensibly selling “souvenirs, novelties (and) party tricks."

If this had been Moscow in 1987, I’d have assumed this mysterious man was about to solicit my thoughts about a black market currency exchange at the best possible rate.

However, the estimable Luc Dequidt was no Soviet-era entrepreneur. Rather, he was chief of Poperinge’s tourist bureau. Having monitored my communications with his staff, Luc wanted to convey personal greetings and make sure our tour was going smoothly; and by the way, was I aware of the next installment of the triennial beer and hop festival, coming in 1999?

Hmm. 

By sheer coincidence, I’d already started plotting to up the beer tour ante in 1999 and doubling the group size for a more ambitious, wider-ranging itinerary. The festival became a part of the plan. 

Let it suffice to say that Luc and I have been friends ever since the hop museum meeting in 1998, and the only beer and hop fest I’ve missed since 1996 was in 2011, when I was incarcerated at the NABC Bank Street Brewhouse Brewhouse penitentiary, serving a sentence of my own making.

I could not have foreseen the immense impact on my subsequent European travels of this fortuitous meeting with Luc. As we’d say in the food and drink business, I quickly became a regular.

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From 1998 through 2008, I turned up in Poperinge under one or another pretext nine times, missing only 2003 and 2006. Five times there was beercycling involved; motorcoach beer tours accounted for three; and in 2007 the late Kevin Richards and I dropped by in late winter for a few days of beer drinking, just for the fun of it.

The NABC Bank Street Brewhouse project started in 2009, and my travel life was altered. For three years, we didn’t go anywhere. Since then, I’ve been to Poperinge only twice (2014 and 2017), and both stays were nostalgic and enriching.  

If not for the pandemic, we’d have been in Poperinge this weekend (September 18, 19 and 20) for the fest and parade. My fingers are crossed for next year’s postponement dates. COVID-19 obviously far outweighs our travel plans, but a boy can and must dream.

It's probably obvious that I spent all week thinking about the many lovely days I've had in Poperinge and environs. One way to approach making sense of them would be to make lists, like favorite recurring parade floats, the countless wonderful meals and beers at establishments like the Hotel Palace, Poussecafe, Café de la Paix, and ‘t Hommelhof (in Watou), or those legendary local beers one always returns to.  

The problem is that I’ve spent just enough time in Poperinge, and on so many occasions, as to become slightly confused about what exactly happened, when and why.

There were city walks and countryside bicycle rides, brass bands and rock concerts, food and drink, frolics and laughter, and those somber, touching visits to the World War I cemeteries intermixed with farms all over the countryside when you think nothing could possibly be funny, ever again.

My thoughts constantly reference the intrepid traveler’s recurring conundrum. Way back in 1985, I spent those three inaugural months in a state of perpetual euphoric motion enabled by a Eurailpass. It was no more than an overview, if a dazed and exhausted on occasion.

For the encore in 1987, so much had yet to be explored – but how could I go all the way to Europe a second time and NOT return to places like Vienna, Munich and Copenhagen, which I adored (and still do)?

But  ... what about the other towns, cities, valleys, mountains, rivers and seaside idylls? Furthermore, why not small areas instead of larger ones? 

And yet, shouldn’t you spend extra time in the locales that intrigue you most, and get to know them better?    

In the end it all blends together into a pleasing, reaffirming  sensation for me. From the moment Luc introduced himself at the hop museum 22 years ago, Poperinge has been welcoming. It's a part of me now. Going there never seems like a “waste” of time, which might be better spent elsewhere. To the contrary, the feeling always is is comfortable, and I never fail to learn something.

To me, that’s what traveling is all about. Cheers to Poperinge, and another chapter on the way in 2021. 

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Recent columns:

September 10: ON THE AVENUES: The Weekly Wad lives on in the minds of malcontents.

September 3: ON THE AVENUES: If you really want to be my friend.

August 27: ON THE AVENUES: Structural racism, white fragility, and my old school.

August 20: ON THE AVENUES: When love and hate collide – or, my father and the governor.

From 1999 (new post): Our group tour descends on Poperinge for the hop parade.

Editor's note: This weekend would have been the latest installment of the triennial Poperinge (Belgium) Beer and Hop Festival, but the pandemic postponed it, along with our trip. Consequently I'm living in the past and flooding the blog pages with reruns of past visits.

The first time I ever set foot in the Belgian city of Poperinge was 1998, a brief stop coinciding with my inaugural motorcoach-powered beer tour. There four other such group extravaganzas to follow before I retired from hosting in 2004.

As an aside, my 2004 retirement came in fits and starts. There were two further efforts to field an excursion, but both fell short of the farm-near-me/">minimum in terms of participants. I knew that if these were to continue, I'd have to up the ante in terms of my own performance, and decided to devote the time to the existing business instead.

The 1999 bus journey was the largest of them all, with 30 of us aboard, and one soon discovers that while greater numbers offer an economy of scale in terms of costs, they also reduce the chance of demonstrating the charms of an elusive back street specialty beer bar with only five tables.

In short, compromises are inevitable, and in the case of the 1999 tour, it quickly became clear to me that Poperinge didn't have a hotel capable of housing the group during the time of the triennial Beer and Hop Festival. Consequently, we stayed ten clicks down the road in the larger city of Ieper (Ypres) at a pleasant business traveler-oriented hotel near the industrial park.

For the hop fest itself, Luc Dequidt arranged a package that included group seating on the bleachers for the hop parade and passes into the German-style beer tent. I advised everyone about the local cafe and restaurant options, trusting they'd break up into smaller groups to explore, and they did.

Everyone was told the location of the motor coach and the deadline for returning to it, assuming they wanted a free ride back to Ieper. We had a long trip to Germany the following morning; hangovers could be nursed on the bus, because drivers must take breaks and cannot be worked beyond contractual limits.

I stressed this point. It also was the pre-Uber era, and while mobile phones existed, they were not common. Taxi service was available, if not optimum. Poperinge was, and remains, the last stop on a branch rail line through Ieper, and trains do not run very long into the evening.

Counting heads as we prepared to depart Poperinge, I saw that a few were missing. There was a fifteen-minute grace period, then we left for Ieper. My tour members were adults, and Poperinge a friendly, accommodating place.

What could go wrong?

Morning came, and it seemed everyone was accounted for. However, as I dug into a plate stacked high with the items from a fabulous breakfast buffet, one of the tour members approached me with a request. His son had flown into Brussels the previous day and joined us in Poperinge for parade. I knew Senior and Junior had connected; I ran into them several times while wandering the streets.

What I didn't know is that the son's commute from America to Europe had taken twice as long, sleeplessly, owing to flight cancellations and delays. Too many beers, not enough shut-eye, and perhaps a stray demon; he'd been involved in a bizarre fracas at the beer tent.

Poperinge authorities merely shrugged, scooped, and deposited Junior into the drunk tank for the night, all quite professional and polite, with instructions to his father as to when he'd be released in Poperinge next day -- this being precisely the same time the bus was scheduled to leave from Ieper.

Hence dad's request for a dispensation, and so of course we waited. It was only 45 minutes, and somewhat comical in the end considering the physical condition of the recently incarcerated. I'd planned on charging him a pro-rated fee for transportation, but decided to require that he buy the first round of beers in Germany, which he did.

I digitized just a few of the photos. I'll get around to the remainder someday.

From 1998 (new post): The first time I visited Poperinge, with previously unpublished photographs.

Editor's note: This weekend would have been the latest installment of the triennial Poperinge (Belgium) Beer and Hop Festival, but the pandemic postponed it, along with our trip. Consequently I'm living in the past and flooding the blog pages with reruns of past visits. 

As I've been saying for 23 years, Poperinge is an interesting place in its own right, as well as a great base of operations to explore numerous destinations of worth nearby, most of them accessible by bicycle. However, the first two times we arrived by bus v.v. the motorcoach beer tour packages I put together in 1998 and 1999.

My usual ON THE AVENUES column slot this week will be a summary of my experiences in Poperinge. The first was in 1998, when I learned that the tourist office in Poperinge was hip to the gradually escalating possibilities of beer tourism, and had a plan for tour buses. It included a local English-speaking guide who'd come on board; a brewery tour of the Van Eecke brewery in Watou (now called Leroy); beers at a traditional old-school café with an opportunity to play old-school tavern games; and admission to the Hop Museum.

The Van Eecke brewery tour was standard; I didn't even take a photograph. However the Au Nouveau St.-Eloi tavern ("estaminet" in French; in Flemish, "kroeg," or pub) was a standout choice. The attraction for foreigners was seeing the old pub games being played; another visitor to a different establishment took these notes:

We try a round of 'baanbolling', bowls played with balls in which the weight is unequally distributed. The skill is to throw the balls so they follow as straight a course as possible. A minor detail: the bowling lane itself is hollow. Hoefijzerwerpen - horseshoe throwing, shooting the 'liggende wip' which is a form of archery, 'vliegende vogelpik', a throwing game with a moving board. "Uitebolling" is another ball throwing game similar to "Shove ha'penny" in the UK or the Dutch 'sjoelen', in tonspel you try to get the puck in the hole, there are table skittles, throwing rings ...

In 1998 we pulled up to find that there had been a recent fire at the tavern, with the whole operation moved to an adjacent building. These days the latter serves as the feestzaal (banquet room), while the damaged building has been completely rebuilt.

Note that Belgium ends and France begins quite literally on the other side of the country lane from the pub's entrance.

The Hop Museum in Poperinge followed. I took only these photos during my first visit, and many more in 2014/2017 after a major refurbishment.