Way back in the day Ghent was a pretty rich and important settlement in Flanders and it's much the same today.  I had a whistlestop tour on Friday morning en route for Dunkirk.  It's got some absolutely wonderful medieval architecture of which it was well nigh impossible to take a decent picture because of the combination of two factors.  Firstly it was hard to get a shot that was not marred by the network of cables supplying power to the trams.  Secondly the town on my visit was infested by beer tents, sound stages and trinket stalls all under hectic construction for the annual Ghent festival.

There's obviously a lot of drink and noise involved and the waiter in the cafe where I had a deliciously cool smoothie insisted that I was mad to be missing it, but like the good news in Browning's poem what it's all about was not revealed.

This is one uncluttered shot I managed to get but the Wikipedia article on the town has some splendid pictures.  A master of Photoshop must have been at work on them.

Bruges, where I stopped for lunch and a zip around was also made of money back in the thirteen hundreds and it still looks pretty well heeled.  Free from tram power lines here's a view of one of its peaceful canals.

They are both lovely cities that I must visit properly some day.

Dunkirk I have never actually visited because my real destination is the weirdly named Loon Plage just by the ferry where a group of cheap hotels awaits the weary traveller.  I was bright and early in the ferry queue the following morning but unused as I am to high season crowds I wasn't bright and early enough to catch the intended boat and arrived in Dover an hour and a half later than planned.  To add to my frustration I was pulled over by the customs and interrogated for some time.  Connor suggested I must have the look of a people smuggler about me.

Fortunately they let me go without ripping my car apart in search of contraband or immigrants and I got up to Keswick without more delay than that caused by real roadworks and those miles of cones that announce roadworks whose existence remains in doubt.

I got home late afternoon the following day and all was in good order except for this poor chap for whom my absence had proved too much.