Sep 09
Been enjoying the Indian Summer…
2004 at 01.51 am posted by Veerle
Fall can be lovely especially when all those colors pop-up and leaves starting to fall, but to me it is the messenger that Winter is on its way. Not that I can’t enjoy a skiing holiday or walk in the Alps. You could classify me as a Summer person. Beach and sun are a great way to recharge my batteries, those are the two things I miss most during Winter. If it where up to me I would kick Fall’s ass back into October so that’s why I’m so grateful for the marvelous weather we’ve been enjoying the past two weeks.
There are a couple of things on the pictures below that are typical Belgian I guess. The beach cabins for starters is example, people rent those to stock there parasols and chairs etc. Also our beaches are special, if there is no big beach like on the pictures then we have dunes. Only the water isn’t that tropical blue (unfortunately) and the waves aren’t big enough for surfers (without a sail). The water is salted and we have high and low tide, that’s why all the people are on the dry sand btw. Well here is my prayer for a couple more of those sunny days :-p
18served
1
Really nice pictures, Veerle. Are all these pictures from Knokke and neighbourhood?
2
Veerle,
Lovely pictures; not much different from the beaches up north, I see, although I’m always impressed by what you guys have invested to make about the whole Belgian seaboard such an attractive place.
Last time I’ve been on one of Holland’s beaches was a couple of weeks ago in Bloemendaal when right that day a freak storm band crossed directly over our heads, with gale-force winds and near-horizontal rain: not exactly pleasant, although the waves churned up by the stormy winds were pretty impressive.
3
Beautiful pictures. As for the term “Indian Summer” .. . is this not a North American term? Out West they use the term i, but I have never heard of it used in Europe before.
4
@Milanek, yes they are all from Knokke. The more you go in the direction of the French border the bigger the beach. Same up North towards the border with the Netherlands. But De Panne has the biggest beach, that’s the last city near the French border. In the middle the beaches are a bit smaller although still big and there are more dunes then at the end or up North.
@Ronald, I think they kind of spoiled the beauty of our beaches with all the apartments and blocks back in the 70’s. Well, ok, it’s fun to walk along the esplanade and there is always amusement, beach volley or whatever, some kite-sailers,… there are a lot of festivities. Last year there was the RedBull Swoop (jumping with parachutes out of a heli). Every year there is the international fireworks competition during a few days in August (I’m big fan of this), which attracts a few 1000 people yearly, really spectacular. So it’s pretty active here during Summer, same goes for all the cities here.
@giovanni, I know! We used this too, translated version of course, but most people say something more like “the latter part of Summer”. I’m sure the expression is more popular in the US then here.
5
Beautiful shots of our belgian coast Veerle!
And about ‘indian summer’, Ozark Henry (a belgian singer/musician) wrote a wonderful song about it:
http://www.sonymusiceurope.com/cgi-bin/multimedia/wmwax?wm.sony-local.global.speedera.net&wm;.sony-local.global/o/ozarkhenry/indian_summer_384k.wmv
6
yes nice song. and some very lovely “indians”!. thanks for the link!
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Ha Veerle. I’m glad you are enjoying nice autumn weather in Belgium. Here in New England we have the most beautiful fall weather and colors. Lots of sunny days, crisp cool mornings with a bit of fog. Apples, cider, stacking wood, canning fruit and vegetables. Just getting ready for the long cold winter. If we’re lucky we have still some warm days in october and november. It is here where I learned about Indian Summer. Here’s information about what it is all about.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/?page=stories/i-summer
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Nice. Those shots were taken a mere mile from my door. I hardly go to the beach though, that’s something for the tourists, not the ‘natives’ :-)
Glad you enjoyed your stay.
Tis alti ekè leutigh om je neigen stadje te zien up tinternet :-)
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@Lode Vanhove, ah yes I forgot all about that. I remember seeing some fragments of the video clip and an interview with Ozark Henri on TV ("Aan Tafel"). It’s a nice song, thanks for bringing this up again ;-)
@els, great background info thanks for sharing. Guess every season has its positive side.
@Peter De Bouvere, yes that is typical. I’m actually from Zeebrugge myself, I used to Iive there till I was 10 and I remember we didn’t go much to the beach either. My mother use to take us for a walk (my brother, sister and me when we were very little) in the dunes nearby Heist (Duinbergen). And we used to go to the beach on my birthday when the weather was fine. My roots are at the coast, I’m born in Blankenberge :-)
10
Hehe, what a coincidence Veerle, I was born in Blankenberge too. I stell live there too, so I am a native of the coast too, and I do go a lot the the beach, especially these last two weeks.
Though I don’t go that often any more as I used to when i was a teenager.
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I have a sister that is named Veerle too by the way :D
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i lived in belgium for five years as a young boy. i recall we lived in a coal mining area… and the town was called Tubiz or something that sounds like it? Veerle do you know it is?
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@giovanni : Yeah, there is a city called Tubize… it’s in the ‘walloon’ part of belgium, so they speak french overthere.
Nice pictures of the belgian cost by the way.
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That colored sail thing you didn’t know the name of .... I believe it’s called a para-sail. I don’t see the rest of it but they usually have a person in a harness attached to a boat that pulls it and the person up and out over the water.
I stumbled upon your CSS tutorials and am starting from the beginning. Hopefully you will see some changes in my site soon ;)
Thanks Veerle for this site.
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@mrkrrtft, no it’s not para-sailing, they don’t hang in the air after a boat or so, it’s something different. They stay on the ground and make the sail fly in the air and do all sorts of tricks with it by playing with the wind etc.
16
OH ok.. I think it’s a stunt kite then:
http://www.kiteworld.com/KiteWorld.asp?p=Big Wings&v=Stunt Kites
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A late comment, but in the US it’s called kitesurfing or kiteboarding. It started in France and Spain in the early 90s and is now worldwide. I started doing it a few years ago, but it got too expensive. Very fun, but expensive, and somewhat dangerous.
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‘Indian summer’ was in fact coined during the British imperial rule in India, to reflect the fact that in India the proper hot summer took place later than in England. It is not a North American term, obviously, and now is used to mean summer weather lasting later than expected.
:)