Globe Corner Blogs

Bruges Canals: Photo by Kate

Bruges is beautiful…  It’s an incredible place to see: a tiny town of canals and swans, weeping willows and ivy, and not a single building that looks like it was built after the year 1500. Brick gingerbread houses with stepped Dutch roofs, tiny cobblestone bridges crossing calm canals, and shady squares with gnarly old trees and tweeting birds. It’s all yours… to share with about 20,000 other tourists! Really, it’s so crowded with tourists there that it’s almost enough to make you lose your appetite for waffles. We found two pretty good ways to avoid the hordes: first, get to the sites you really want to see as early as possible, and second: get a bike! Continue Reading »

Kabouter and shrine--Photo by Kate

This town has a funny tourism schtick: blue gnomes. Technically, I think they are called kabouters. What are kabouters, you ask? According to Wikipedia, they are Dutch leprechauns. From what I’ve been able to decipher from the (wooden) kabouters I’ve seen posted around this Belgian town, they seem to be little men that live in and around oversize red mushrooms with white polka dots. Children like them; they like children. I think they are religious, since the local church has a kabouter at the top of its spire, and this particular kabouter to the right keeps vigil next to a statue of the Virgin Mary. Continue Reading »

Smurf and Sign: Photo by Kate

When I was accepted into the printmaking residency at the Frans Masereel Center in Kasterlee, Belgium, I emailed around looking for advice from anyone who’d been before. In addition to commenting on the great printmaking facilities and the beautiful countryside location, one over-enthusiastic printmaker reported back on the Center’s grounds being filled with ponies and miniature squirrels. He said it was gated “to keep out the gnomes.” The next person talked about the “enchanted forest” nearby that you can explore on your state-sponsored yellow bicycle. I figured these were some crazy printmakers who’d been exposed to too much lithotine. But, in the past four days, I’ve found their tales to be (mostly) true.

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