Damme Day Trip - April 1, 2001

It was another dry, sunny, mild day so we decided we could do two day-trips in a row.  We didn’t get away until noon but headed west this time on E-40 past Aalst and Gent onto highway N44 in the town of Aalter.  We took back roads to our destination, the small town of Damme on the north side of Brugge.  Damme is a very pretty town on the Zwin estuary.  It served as Brugge’s outer harbor and specialized in the wine trade.  The marriage of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York was celebrated here in 1468 but by the end of the 15^th century it was in decline as Brugge was.  Today Damme is mostly nice restaurants and a few shops.  There is the pretty, small Stadhuis dating from the 15^th century, St. Jans hospital founded in the 13^th century and the 13^th century Onze Lieve church as the major tourist sights.  We walked throughout the town, which didn’t take long, and settled on De Lieve restaurant for lunch.



We had another excellent, three-hour lunch starting out with an amuse bouche of shellfish, scallops and salmon.  The first course was a huge serving of fresh white asparagus covered in a chopped, deviled egg sauce.  They were good but we still prefer the green asparagus.  The main course was nicely presented and was fillet of sole topped with hops sprouts, which we were told just came into bloom and only last for three weeks, and covered with a beure blanc sauce.  It was accompanied by sliced eggplant covered with caviar, dried tomato and a little pot of puree potatoes with black truffle flakes on top.  We had a nice Sancerre wine with the meal and turned down dessert.  We had tea and coffee, which are always accompanied by little chocolates anyway, so who needed dessert?



After that big lunch we decided we needed to walk a little more.  We walked along the canal on a path crowded with bicycle riders and walkers as the temperature was up in the 60s and there was plenty of nice sunshine.  Since we usually get lots of leftover rain that England doesn’t want, sunshine is highly praised.  A little way out of town alongside the canal is a nice old windmill.  This part of Belgium looks very much like Holland.



We walked back to the car and took back roads again north to Holland.  We drove to Cadzand Bad, parked the car and walked to the top of the sand dunes to view the North Sea.  From here we headed east taking small roads where we could stop and watch baby lambs beside the road (but safely behind a fence with mama).  We saw many more windmills and quaint little houses and prosperous looking farms.  After a while we decided to go home crossing back into Belgium in a little town called Eede then back into Brussels much the same way we came.