West Flanders

But you're in Belgium.

What do you say? What are you doing? Previewing? Doing a recon of Flanders?

No, I don't have my bike here.

I'm going to walk.

We're diluting the value of road cycling by...

How can I explain this in a non-political way?

If you want to score 75 UCI points, you have to go to West Flanders on a rainy fucking Wednesday in March, and you're going to ride on a cement slab slash cobbles and risk the threat of death in a sprint at Rondevon Limburg, which I know is not in West Flanders.

So...

Who knew ice cold drinks could be so...

the scant remains were garnered damp the chopped straw could scarcely be used at all for fodder while it was impossible to save the thrashed grain from rotting the former was dangerous for the cattle the latter for men the consequence of three such successive years of failure of the harvest was an incredible dearth inconceivable alike to the oldest people as to their descendants the most terrible distress in short the extremest famine oppressed the poor trade came to a still stand all the channels of gain were closed the complete want of money forbade the enjoyment of bread a sixpenny loaf could not suffice for one person much less for a whole family for there was no nourishment whatever in the dear lieben bread it was no wonder then that these wretched creatures in order to support their miserable existence should take to food fit for cattle and against nature i mean for instance grass thistles and unwholesome sorts of cabbage bran porridge roasted rye grass vetches and other grain fruits made hot nay the distress at length compelled them to resort to that fare on which foxes feed all that was unaccustomed an abnormal nourishment and had a material influence on what we call the fever but the fever which spread far and wide and which by contagion passed to the better classes was described in pretty similar terms by all observers under the name of spotted or putrid fever irland likewise was visited in the year seventeen seventy one with the epidemic spotted fever i admit that this fact has only recently excited our attention only indeed since we got to know that it constituted the heading to one of the chapters of human misery since now almost two hundred years ireland may be considered as the principal seat of the famine fever it is not too much to say that as egypt was from the plague so has ireland ever since seventeen o eight been desolated with ever new visitations of this most malignant of epidemies the typhus fever petechial typhus no other country in the world can be even distantly compared with it in this respect public attention and solicitude were chiefly directed to this point since the plague of eighteen seventeen through nineteen when forty four thousand individuals perished and the eighth part of the entire irish population sickened at that time several cases occurred also in edinburgh and london since when new epidemies have followed in quick succession among which the inconceivably virulent one of the years eighteen forty six to eighteen forty eight calls for notice it first appeared after a widespread failure of the potato crop the total of those who were seized throughout the whole country was calculated at more than a million forty thousand being set down to dublin alone the poor irishmen left their green island in crowd but whither they went the typhus went with them above three hundred thousand had been seized in england chiefly in liverpool where ten thousand died in eighteen forty seven seventy five thousand irishmen emigrated to canada well-nigh ten thousand of them perished partly on the way out partly in quarantine but all could not prevent its being brought into several american towns simultaneously with this irish plague although in no immediate connection with it famine fever showed itself in flanders and upper silesia spreading as an epidemic since eighteen thirty six the population of flanders had not been in so prosperous a condition owing to the factories having supplanted the handlooms and eighteen forty five witnessed the complete victory of machine labour over that of the hand close upon this came in eighteen forty six the total loss of the potato crops and but a very indifferent grain harvest the distress became so great that in many places the inhabitants could only find turnip parings dandelions cabbage leaves carrots diseased potatoes sometimes a little brown bread to eat nay many families could not even procure themselves these luxuries every day Here the epidemic broke out, and the summing up at the close of the year 1847 showed that the population of West Flanders in consequence of the numerous cases of death was reduced to the standard of 1841, and the population of East Flanders to that of 1842.

Of 60,377 who were seized, 11,900 died, that is, almost 20%.

the potato disease had come to upper silesia in eighteen forty five and repeated its visit the following year when the distress became so great that the circles were forced to make loans to enable them to distribute flour to the poor the annexation of the free state of cracow by austria and the subsequent imposition of duty blighted all of a sudden the hitherto flourishing linen and woollen trade of the small towns the poor people had to sell their cattle then the store of sauerkraut the favourite food of the lower classes likewise came to an end and nothing was left but diseased potatoes clover and scarcely eatable fruit the opening of the summer excited great hopes but copious falls of rain and inundations came later the potato disease broke out anew in short the harvest was a complete failure the fever now broke out when i published my report in the summer of eighteen forty eight the following was the picture i drew a desolating epidemic and a terrible famine are raging at the same time amongst an impoverished ignorant and dispirited people in the canton of pless died in one year ten per cent of the population six and a half of starvation and fever while the official lists tell us of one and three-tenths of downright starvation alone in the district of rubnik fourteen point three per cent of the inhabitants fell sick in eight months of the fever of whom twenty point four six per cent died and it was officially corroborated that a third part of the population had to be wholly maintained for six months In the beginning of 1848, the two districts reckoned as many as 3% of orphans.

It is the third largest city after Brussels and Antwerp.

And I've got podcasts on Brussels and Antwerp, so why not have a listen? The provinces of East Flanders, known as Oost-Vlaanderen and West Flanders, make up northwest Belgium.

It was also a great cloth town that grew to become... europe's largest city after paris and constantinople dent was known in the early 19th century as the first town in flanders to harness the industrial revolution to see historical buildings in the city were converted into flax and cotton processing mills and became like the city of manchester the united kingdom as the industrial revolution at the museum of industry in dent So I've got some links of how to get to Ghent and you can travel by train, by coach.

Ghent has a lovely feel to it.

I come from the West of Flanders, but not from a city that's near the coast, but I was at the province.

West Flanders is the most...

It's the province where we have a little bit of 64 kilometers of coast.

That's where that is.

Oh, it was so good.

And, and, you know, I, I, I, I focus in on, I, I posted a picture of this, uh, you know, the, the, being up a, a, at Bar Bernard, the rooftop bar at the St. Bernardus Brewery out in West Flanders in the middle of the hop fields at sunset with my family, holding the St. Bernardus Abt 12.

Like, my favorite moment of my whole life, I think.

[laughs]

Yes.

I didn't see one of them when I was in West Flanders.

Um-

A salad?