Double Damme – Sunday

Both Belgium’s appeal and its drawbacks are root wrapped in its immediate charming domesticity: unkempt little fields with black and white cows separate mini-brick built houses whose windows are shrouded with thick lace-curtained windows and gardens display close-shaved, excruciatingly tidy topiary.

This Sunday of the May Day weekend Belgium thoroughly merits the oft-repeated, clichéd description of “flat, smells of cow shit and closed”. Along the whole of the 70 kilometres between Velzeke and Damme the only shops open were patisseries, every one with a most mouth-wateringly seductive range of cakes – chocolate and fruit confections in pleated white paper - all regrettably untransportable in either tool-stuffed panniers or dirty-washing packed tank bag.

So we arrived in Damme again, with four hours to spare and the restaurant we chose had battleship grey walls hung with a variety of prints, each with its own strip light above. The floor was black tiled, tables black wood and high-backed chairs black leather – all cool and modern in an old, old room – and behind a pewter-topped bar, on white painted shelves were rows of gleaming wineglasses and whisky bottles with tawny orange labels.

Coffees, then lunch, then more coffees, then musical chairs to the luxurious loo, then a paying of the ‘rekening’; having watched the hail torrent down we made sure to collect up our economically-used blanket-thick serviettes to wipe down wet bike saddles. Returning to the square we discovered that Damme is a ‘book town’ with an event on the second Sunday of every month – on this first Sunday the one and only secondhand bookshop open yielded up A. S. Byatt’s ‘The Matisse Stories’, of which I’ve read one so far.