Botanical garden in leuven

I visited the beautiful botanical garden in the university town of Leuven in Belgium again.

These porpoises live there in the glass houses together with tropical plants. Cosy in their warm environment.

The outside pond.

They planted for spring and the flowers are out.

Perhaps you remember the lady on the lawn from a previous post?

The wisteria growing against the glass house is already in full bloom.

They seem to have grown freestanding wisteria’s as well in the open and those are still in the early stages of blooming.

They put a statue up of Rembert Dodoens, know as the father of botany. He was a medical doctor who had a keen interest in plants as adjunct to his practice.

In those days medical practice in  northern europe was based on Greco Roman and Arab teachings and the medicinal plants prescribed were  from the mediteranian. Part of his job as city doctor was to supervise the pharmacists. Because the plants and substances were unknown to the pharmacists and not readily available they tended to use substitutes.

Dodoens made great advances in botany by seeking new plants out himself and describing them. Of the around 1040 plants he described over 600 had never been described before.

He wrote in the local spoken language so that the pharmacists could readily understand and also translated other existing works.

He was the first person to classify plants according to their characteristics, in the way we still do today.

Born under the name Rembert van Joenckema he later took the name he would have had had his family stayed in Friesland. The tradition being to take as surname the name of your father in the genetive. His father was called Dodo in Frisian, which translates to Denys.

Plants carrying his names are called Dodoens.

Some final pictures of the lovely spring garden.

They leave the grass long for spring in a section of the garden so that the flowers may grow.

Brugge – Provinsiaal Hof

From 1500 the river silted up and water traffic was no longer possible. The city lost its reason d’être, and stayed in medieval style, unique in Europe.

This court is in neo-gothic style.

Botanical Garden – Leuven

The botanical garden in Leuven, Flemish Brabant, Belgium. The city also has the oldest catholic university still in existence.

Part of the heritage of convents are their gardens, medicinal herbs falling in the cadre of the monks.

as did drinks..

for the absinth

and hobs for the beer. Stella Artois is from Leuven and the second large export product together with the university.

Taxus is not only used for hedges, but a product for chemotherapy is also made from it.

At the TU Delft (Technical University) the garden has to earn its keep (being in the Netherlands 😉 ) One of the brains there realized one day that during a thunder storm you can smell fir trees. He then thought to use electricity to milk the Taxus in stead of having to cut them down to get the substance. You need tonnes of wood to get only milliliters.

And it worked. You put a gardening fork in the ground to earth the wire and put stream on the tree. A fine spray comes out of the leaves which contains the substance you’re after.

The tree is unharmed and can be milked again after a time.

Madam seems satisfied 🙂

Shelter for exotic plants.

And some trees dressed in autumn colours.

Perhaps the best, and certainly one of the most charming of the botanical gardens I have seen.

Antwerp

A few photos of Antwerp. If you arrive by train this will be your first view of the city as you take the escalator up out of the station.

Cool isn’t it, looks like you are inside a giant clock.

If you walk a way along the road, you will find this totally random camel on the roof. I thought the Belgians were in central Africa not so much in the desert. Perhaps in the second world war.

I was a real tourist in Antwerp, only stayed one night so I really cannot claim to know the city, except to say that it was summer.

When I arrived it was one of those beautiful days when you stroll down a new street and can smile with strangers about the way the wind plays with your dress and eat MacDonalds with the rest of the plebs.

Sometimes one seems to share joy more easily with passing strangers.

The cathedral of our lady is just behind the Grote Markt (market square).

At the cathedral there is a modern statue that I didn’t get, it looked somehow dark. Sometimes the puritan streak in this part of the world is rather strong.

On the Grote Markt is the Stadhuis (City Hall) and another extraordinary statue.

You can find good food on the square. Mussels and Chips (a Flemish idea) and off course the famous chocolate. Sinds 1908 (since) English being a germanic language some words are scarily the same.

Antwerp is a harbour city along the river Schelde. If memory serves the Dutch made an agreement with the Belgians  well over a hundred years ago not to close this river so that the harbour could remain open.

The entire Dutch water system, which is immense, is planned around this agreement. No Dutch rivers flow into the sea, all water in pumped out. The entire country being a river delta and mostly below sea level, which explains the excellent soil.

Perhaps keeping your word is still the most distinguishing caracteristic of civilization. Not the way you comb your hair or your outward manners.

Sometimes I get the idea people see it as a great achievement to keep their word until this afternoon, never mind next century.

Antwerp is the second biggest harbour in Europe after Rotterdam. As a result they have things like the Norse seamen’s church and the like for the Finnish and Swedish.

The French Huegenots fled toward the protestant north and I seem to recall quite a few of them took ships here to South Africa and a new life there. Some of their descendants sent back a few diamonds and the Jewish community mostly cut them. After New York (previously Nieue Amsterdam) Antwerp was the biggest community of Hassidic Jews outside of Israel.

Also along the river is an old castle, Het Steen (The Rock), with a rather modern and rather blue carpet rolled out.

And after a long day in the city nothing beats visiting the park at sundown.

This is the end my friend. Leave us a comment why don’t you! It’s up top below the title.