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Every time someone visits
me in New York for the first time, I discover something new in the city
I have known for more than 20 years. Sometimes it’s a great restaurant
just a block away from my apartment, but often the reward is much greater,
like the penguin room at the Central Park Zoo. It’s easy to become
numb to your hometown’s treasures, but spend a day pretending you’re
a tourist and you’ll definitely see them in a different light. If
your home is a small European country, it’s all the easier.
Northern Belgium, or
Flanders, is an area with a flat but picturesque countryside and cities
rich in history, architecture, and art, where meandering rivers such as
the Leie, Schelde, and Meuze as well as intricate canal systems connect
charming towns to medieval cities. As beautiful as the area is, five years
ago there were no Belgian charter boats. The waterways were well-traveled,
but the traffic consisted primarily of tankers and sluggish barges hauling
cargo. Surely this country that has more than 400 beers and at least one
chocolate shop in every town is an ideal place to vacation. Maurits and
Olga Karreman thought so and figured water was the best way to do it.
Experienced sailors
on commercial vessels for more than a decade, both had plenty of time
under their belts on most European waterways. Although neither had ever
worked on a passenger ship, they’ve ended up making their living
doing just that. In 1997, after months of research and business plans,
the Belgian couple determined to buy a barge, refit it to carry passengers,
and start their own charter operation on the waterways of their home country.
A year later the duo
found their baby: a 30-meter (about 98-foot) freighter built in 1928.
Her history includes 50 years transporting sand and gravel, a deliberate
sinking during WWII to prevent her seizure by the Germans, and 20 years
docked with her cargo areas filled with junk collected by her retired
owner.
The ship’s metamorphosis
began with the replacement of all of her underwater plating. Only the
original frames were kept to retain the hull’s shape. Next the cargo
areas were transformed into four cabins and the original captain’s
quarters were remodeled to become a galley and the owners’ private
apartment. The creation of dining and adjacent seating areas completed
the work below. Outside, a deck with overhangs and an enclosed pilothouse
with an added seating area were constructed. Finally in 1999, after 14
months of work, Olga and Maurits Karreman christened De 4 Vaargetijden
("four sailing seasons" in Dutch). She has been carrying passengers,
instead of cargo, through the same waterways she traveled more than 50
years ago ever since.
When I first stepped
aboard Vaargetijden on a Monday evening last May, she was docked
in the harbor of Oudenaarde, a small Belgian city a 11Ú2-hour drive west
of Brussels. With her bright red hull and shiny white deck, it was hard
to imagine her workhorse past. Photographer Robert Holland and I were
greeted by Boef, the boat’s resident sheepdog, and then led below
to our accommodations by Maurits.
Each cabin is simple
and clean, with twin bunks, a dresser, and an en suite head. A casual
ambiance is intentional: The owners wanted their floating home to retain
her freight barge heritage. Brass accents combined with ample use of wood
result in unpretentious spaces where you can imagine anyone being comfortable.
I sure was as I quickly nodded off to sleep that evening.
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Belgium continued > Page 1, 2,
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