Tournai, Walloon Region, Belgium
Tournai is the westernmost French-speaking city in Belgium
and not all that far from my mother’s hometown on the Flemish-speaking side of
the linguistic divide. Thus, I made a stop there by train on my 2002 visit to
Belgium. The city’s main site is its huge cathedral, mostly Romanesque in style
but with some Gothic elements whose historical significance is one of the
earliest cathedrals with Gothic elements that influenced the architecture of
the great Gothic cathedrals of northern France. So it was disappointing when it
was closed for renovation (or so I thought) back in 2002. It was a rainy
February day back then so quite dreary for my walk around town. I had a big
lunch but left after a few hours to go to Kortrijk.
I spent the night at the municipal campground and thought I’d
check the town out again and get to see the cathedral this time since I also
had some time to kill before I was due in Waregem in the early afternoon. One
of the things I’ve noticed about Belgium is that things normally don’t get off
to a very early start; I know I’m not going to find cooked American style
breakfast but struggled to find a café or boulangerie that was open for some
coffee and a few croissants. I bought a waffle at a shop, but they couldn’t
make me any of the sandwiches on their menu because she said the day’s bread
delivery hadn’t arrived from the bakery yet. I ended up buying a few things at
a grocery store. It must be the influence of the Spanish occupation back in the
1600s.
Whoa! The cathedral is still covered partially with
scaffolding and only small parts are open to visits, mostly for religious
purposes, the rest being a construction site. How long does a reconstruction
take? Well, I learned that the
reconstruction didn’t actually begin until 2006. The closure back in 2002 was due
to a tornado that hit the cathedral in 1999 which destabilized one of the
towers. First, there was a tornado in Belgium? I find that hard to believe.
Second, while most of Tournai was destroyed in the German bombardment in 1940,
the cathedral experienced relatively little damage except for the roof. So a
cathedral can withstand and aerial bombardment but not big windstorm? I dunno!
Anyway, Tournai is a city without much that’s tall except
for a few other churches and the belfort, so the cathedral towers really stand
out from afar. And there’s not all that much else to see in the city, it being
one to have experienced great WWII damage and not be reconstructed in a
medieval fashion. One exception is the small fine arts museum with a few
paintings by resident artist Rogier Van Der Weyden and a few notable paintings
by Brueghel and Manet.
2025-05-22