Streets

Many town centres have a pedestrian zone where the road is made with small, roughly-cut, cube-shaped stones. Cycling on these is not a comfortable experience! In town, streets for motor vehicles are usually made with small, rectangular paving slabs rather than tarmac. The same materials are used for the pavements, giving a much more uniform visual appearance across the whole street.

I've often tried to define why even the tarmacked roads between towns look so different from ours. I think it is because the tarmac is pale in colour, there is no kerb or barrier separating the road from the verge and no change in height between the road and verge. Added flatness!

The zebra stripes of crossings are often painted diagonally instead of straight across the street. Where the street is paved, the stripes are usually made from coloured slabs rather than paint. The pole for a pelican crossing is striped black and yellow (I don't remember if it's always been like that?) and the green man is accompanied by a noise like muted machine gun fire.

Poles shaped something like bendy fishing rods dangle the traffic lights or signboards over the middle of the lanes of traffic. Bicycles on street signs are meticulously painted, including the details of pedals, mudguards and stays.

The trams all run from electric wire, so a network of overhead wires is a feature of the cityscape. These wires are often strung between houses, and street lights may also be suspended in this way. Other street lights are attached to the houses, making for fewer obstructions on the pavements than in Britain.

Many city streets are wide. Often there are trams running up the middle and sometimes avenues of trees separating them from the lanes for cars. Some of them have another surprise. Lines of shop windows (bay windows?) display scantily clad women waiting for business. The blatancy of this always shocks - a complete contrast with the decorum of the surroundings.

A smell which strongly evokes Belgium for me is sewers. I haven't experienced it strongly this time, but from time to time one would wander past somewhere and be almost knocked out by the smell.

A good number of shops have the words "Vrije Ingang" (free entry) displayed in the window. This always seemed odd to me - is there a traditional expectation that you pay to go into a shop?

Bakers are usually advertised as "Brood en Banket Bakkerij". I never found out what "banket" means in this context - "Bread and Banquet Baker's"? As well as bread, they sell all manner of cakes, usually available by the slice, tarts with glazed fruit and marzipan figures.

From your correspondent in Belgium