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A Sea Change in Ostend
14 July 2022
On a visit to the Flemish coastal town of Ostend, Derek Blyth discovers grand architecture, a world-famous soul singer and the perfect shrimp croquette.
James Joyce’s Summer Holiday in Ostend
14 June 2022
On 16 June, James Joyce and his most famous novel Ulysses will be celebrated for the first time in Ostend during Bloomsday. Belgium’s largest coastal town has its own unique connection to the Irish author. In 1926, Joyce spent a summer holiday in Ostend. He wrote letters and postcards to his frien
A Gem for Enthusiasts: ‘The Land Between the Languages’ by Stefan Zweig
23 May 2022
Austrian Jewish writer Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) liked to visit Belgium and did so frequently. His reportages on those visits have now been translated into Dutch and collected into a small, beautifully illustrated volume. The stories vary greatly in quality, revealing Zweig’s evolution as a writer,
When Flemish Rabbits Fed the Poor of London
11 January 2022
When people think about Ostend and food, it tends to be shrimps or mussels. But for Londoners in 19th century, it would have been rabbits. From the 1840s on, vast numbers of rabbits – skinned and packed into crates – were sent across the Channel by steamer to be sold in London’s markets. These
Duelling in the Dunes. When Tourists Fought in Flanders
9 September 2021
In the 19th century, a very particular kind of tourist came to Flanders: foreigners looking for a quiet place to fight. They came to settle debts of honour out of the public eye, and to avoid the increasing prohibitions on duelling in their home countries. Any trouble with the Belgian authorities co
The Untold Story of the ‘Belgian’ Slave Trade
30 August 2021
It is well known that the great European powers were involved in slavery. But that the Southern Netherlands were also heavily invested in the slave trade is much less known. In the late eighteenth century, various ships departed from hotspot Ostend to the coasts of West and Central Africa to exchang
James Ensor’s Baths at Ostend Recomposed
23 April 2021
Award-winning art photographer Athos Burez tackled The Baths of Ostend, the famous painting by James Ensor, and gave it his own interpretation. Hundreds of actors were needed for this project.
Léon Spilliaert, a Troubled and Troubling Painter
13 January 2020
From 23 February, the Royal Academy of Arts will present the first major exhibition of Flemish artist Léon Spilliaert (1881–1946) to be held in the UK. Bringing together around 80 works drawn from public and private collections across Belgium, France, Great Britain and the USA, the exhibition wil
James Ensor, Painter of Both the Exalted and the Vulgar
18 November 2019
On 19 November it will be 70 years since James Ensor died in a hospital in Ostend. Writer Koen Peeters, who published his novel A Room in Ostend this year, brings an ode to this ‘realist, pleinairist, painter of light and masks’, who would go and salute his own statue at the casino.
Belle Epoque Centre Takes You Back to the Golden Age of Blankenberge
3 July 2019
The associations you spontaneously make with the popular seaside town Blankenberge are probably not directly linked to art or a rich past. The queen of seaside towns it is not, but there was a time when it could certainly rival Ostend. The Belle Epoque Centre shows how, in its heyday, from 1870 till
Arno, Teetering Between Emotion and Banality
21 May 2019
The Americans have Tom Waits, the Flemish have Arno. The singer with the rasping voice is undoubtedly the most colourful and most cosmopolitan rocker that Flanders has ever produced. Arno, né Hintjens (b. 1949), delights in putting listeners off balance. At the same time though he is a master of th
