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Great Continental Railway Journeys - Season 9 Episode 7 - Brussels to Ghent
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00:01I'm embarking on a new series of railway journeys, exploring Europe's most
00:08beautiful and historic regions. Oh, we're about to set off.
00:14From Belgium. Oh, I'm loving this.
00:20To Hungary. Oh, this is amazing. And the islands of Sardinia.
00:29Fantastic. And Corsica.
00:34I'll enjoy nature, history, culture and fun in some of Europe's most enchanting places.
00:44I am looking forward to a tremendous railway adventure.
01:16My journey continues in Belgium, a country whose railways go back almost as far as those
01:24in Britain. I'll investigate vintage locomotives and visit one of the world's loveliest stations.
01:31In Antwerp, I'll be dazzled by the brilliant history of diamonds. And in Ghent, there's
01:38a painting so important and so influential that it's been the victim of theft on seven occasions.
01:45I hope that it won't have vanished by the time that I arrived there.
01:52After setting out from London, I arrived in the bilingual capital, Brussels.
01:58I'll explore the Flanders region, which speaks Flemish, a variant of Dutch, with its North Sea coastline,
02:04before heading south through the wooded hills of Wallonia, where the people speak French.
02:10Using the extensive rail network, I'll visit beautiful places where history was made,
02:16unveiling a country of contrasting cultures.
02:26Leopold, the first king of an independent Belgium, was a very keen moderniser.
02:32And in 1835, Belgium opened along this route, the first railway anywhere outside Britain,
02:39using British locomotives. It was also the first railway to connect a capital city.
02:46Thereafter, the Belgian railway network grew fast and became very, very dense.
02:51During the First and Second World Wars, the railways were heavily fought over and badly damaged.
02:59And in the second, a train carrying Belgian Jews to the extermination camps
03:06was ambushed by Jewish freedom fighters, and 231 prisoners were enabled to escape.
03:12And of those who took refuge with Belgian families, none was betrayed.
03:22From the bilingual region of Brussels, I'm travelling into Flemish-speaking Flanders,
03:27where my first stop will be Antwerp on the River Scheldt.
03:34It's Belgium's second city, with a population of just over half a million,
03:39and has been an important trading centre since the Middle Ages.
03:43That old wealth is manifest in its wonderful historic buildings,
03:48including the impressive central station.
03:54Such extraordinary grandeur, Antwerp was the premier port of the Belgian Empire,
04:01and it required a railway station of appropriate quality.
04:05And an architect who was the favourite of King Leopold II was employed,
04:09and came up with a design that was inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
04:20Close to the station is the Diamond Quarter,
04:23also known as the Diamond Square Mile,
04:26home to the city's most renowned business,
04:29thought to be worth around £35 billion a year.
04:36Antwerp has been associated with diamonds since the 15th century
04:40in a city celebrated for the exquisite skills of its craftsmen.
04:45One of them devised the technique of using one diamond to cut another,
04:50and such expertise led to a golden age in the city.
04:55The port became the commercial centre of Europe.
04:59Diamonds are Antwerp's best friend.
05:03To explore the history of this valuable business,
05:06I'm taking a tour with diamond trader Ilana Brandwain.
05:11Ilana, Antwerp has been associated with diamonds for centuries.
05:15What was the origin?
05:17So the origin was around 1447,
05:20because of its location on the River Scheldt,
05:22which has an opening into the North Sea.
05:25Diamond merchants from India, Venice, Spain, they came over to Antwerp.
05:30And then the first diamond techniques, cutting of diamond techniques,
05:34with a diamond using a scave,
05:36were developed here by Lodeweg van Bergen.
05:39So this was the start of our long, amazing history.
05:44For centuries, Antwerp's diamond industry was dominated by the city's Jewish community,
05:49who'd fled persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe,
05:53and taken refuge in Belgium.
05:56By the end of the 1930s, this small minority of 55,000 people,
06:01ran 90% of the trade.
06:04During the Second World War,
06:06many of the Jews who worked in the diamond business were murdered, of course.
06:10At the end of the war, were Jewish families able to return to Antwerp,
06:13or did the business move into different hands?
06:16No, so actually Antwerp City did a lot to resurrect the business.
06:20There was a mayor at the time called Camille Hurstmanns,
06:23who actually gave a lot of incentives,
06:24and that's how all the Jews that survived came back.
06:28There are also stories of families before they had to flee,
06:31hiding diamonds in the walls and in the gardens,
06:34and telling their children where to find them when they came back.
06:37Extraordinary.
06:40Today, there are thought to be over 1,400 diamond businesses based here,
06:45employing around 6,000 people.
06:47The historic Antwerp diamond bourse, or exchange,
06:51is the largest of four in the city,
06:54and not surprisingly, security is very tight.
06:59You go inside, wait for it to close,
07:02stand in the middle of the yellow box.
07:07And then it will open up for you.
07:14And with one bound, I am free.
07:20We've entered a beautiful room.
07:23Yes, it's used more as a club room today,
07:25but it used to be very busy.
07:27This place was opened around 1905.
07:30Merchants used to trade diamonds in a café near here,
07:33and then they realized they needed a safer environment.
07:37Historically, what would have been the scene here?
07:39It would be bustling with traders.
07:42Actually, this whole room was filled with tables.
07:44Because of the use of technology,
07:47customers don't come in the same way as they used to.
07:49Sometimes there are still some small deals that happen here.
07:53I'm not planning to buy,
07:55but Ilana has brought a few diamonds to dazzle me.
07:59Have a seat.
08:01Now, how does a diamond begin life?
08:04In the depths of the crust of the earth,
08:07and through volcanic eruptions,
08:09it will go to the surface, to the rivers,
08:13to deep mine pits.
08:15And if it didn't undergo all the pressure,
08:18it's the same composition as coal.
08:20Ha!
08:20I've got a couple here.
08:22I mean, you wouldn't even know that was a diamond, probably.
08:26I would not.
08:26And then here is a semi-polished diamond as well,
08:30so you can see it start taking shape.
08:33Yes.
08:34There's a lot of things that affect the value of a diamond.
08:36There's the four Cs, colour, cut, clarity, and the weight, the carats.
08:42The business went through a bad period reputationally
08:44with the so-called blood of diamonds.
08:46How has the industry come back from that?
08:49Something called the Kimberley Process Certificate was created,
08:52and there's about 85 countries that have joined that initiative
08:55to guarantee that these are not diamonds sold to finance wars.
09:01Today, Antwerp is leading the way in not selling Russian diamonds
09:06because of the war with Ukraine.
09:08Yes, yes.
09:09So, may we see some, um, some diamonds?
09:11Like some cut diamonds.
09:12So, here, we've got a white diamond.
09:14You keep them in a little piece of paper?
09:16Yes, it's called a briefcoeur.
09:18It's the Flemish word for envelope.
09:19It's used in all the diamond centres of the world.
09:22So, this is how you buy loose diamonds.
09:24It's a round cut diamond.
09:27A beautiful white diamond.
09:30You've always got to be very careful when you pick them up.
09:32That's very exquisite.
09:33So, if you would like to look through the magnifying glass,
09:36it's a ten times magnifying glass to look at.
09:39Ah, suddenly.
09:40Yes.
09:41It comes into focus.
09:43I can see very clearly the many cuts facets.
09:46This one, it's the classic brilliant cut,
09:49which has 57 facets developed by an Antwerp cutter,
09:54Marcel Tolkowski, in 1919.
09:57It's more expensive than other cuts, usually,
09:59because you lose the most weight when you cut it from rough,
10:03and also because it's the most popular cut.
10:08Amazingly, 85% of the world's rough diamonds pass through this city,
10:14although nowadays most cutting is done in countries like India
10:17and China, where costs are lower.
10:20But Antwerp still boasts around 300 experts,
10:25like Peter Bombeker, who crafts bespoke cuts in his workshop.
10:30Peter?
10:31Yeah?
10:31May I disturb you, please?
10:33I'm Michael.
10:34Michael.
10:35What a pleasure.
10:36What made you want to go into diamond cutting?
10:39I didn't want to.
10:42To say my results in school were not that brilliant,
10:47and my grandfather had a cutting factory,
10:52and then a decision was made by my parents.
10:56To be a diamond cutter, what qualities do you need?
11:00I imagine patience...
11:02Patience, for sure, and concentration.
11:05And all the rest is more technical.
11:08As you can see, I have quite a bit of equipment.
11:11Would you mind showing me what you do?
11:13Please have a seat.
11:14Thank you, I will. Thanks.
11:17It's not only a matter of quality or size, it's a mixture,
11:22so you have to make sure you get the maximum value out of the stone.
11:26For the owner.
11:28Invented here over 500 years ago,
11:30the scafe wheel, coated with diamond particles,
11:34is still used today.
11:35This is the diamond you're cutting on the arm,
11:38and your cutting agent is diamond particles on the wheel.
11:42Yeah. Basically, diamond cuts a diamond,
11:45and what we have to do is control the right angle and size of the facet.
11:52How long do you normally think it will take you to cut a diamond to your satisfaction?
11:58Well, for a brilliant, about two weeks.
12:01Two weeks for one brilliant?
12:03For a big size, so one carat billion.
12:05How many people like you are there, do you think?
12:09Around the world?
12:10Yeah.
12:12Only one, me.
12:16In India, nowadays, I'm not sure, maybe 300,000.
12:21But I have factories in Africa also, some several places now.
12:26But for a quality diamond?
12:27You talk about 100, 200, 300 carats, they come here to Antwerp.
12:32I'm doing smaller stones, but I don't care, I'm still busy.
12:44I'm leaving the city centre and heading 14 miles south-west,
12:48to the small town of Purs in search for a little nostalgia.
13:00With Belgium's very dense railway network, it was possible to travel between Antwerp and Ghent by a choice of several
13:08different routes.
13:09But one of those eventually became redundant with the building of a new tunnel near Antwerp under the River Shelp.
13:17And that line has now become one of only four standard gauge heritage railways in Belgium, run by a wonderful
13:26group of volunteers!
13:34The nine-mile Dendamonde to Purs line opened in 1986, and here at Purs station I'm hitching a ride on
13:42one of their nine diesel locomotives.
13:47All locomotives have a throaty roar, but this one has a Belgian accent.
13:54My driver, Vim Charita, is also the owner.
13:59Hello, Vim!
14:00Hello, Michael!
14:01Right on time!
14:02Come on board!
14:02Thank you!
14:04Vim, tell me about this locomotive.
14:06It's a Belgian locomotive.
14:07It's actually one of the first mainline diesel construction in Belgium.
14:12What kind of a year?
14:141954.
14:16It's about the same age as I am, actually.
14:18How long have you had it?
14:19Already for more than ten years.
14:22You want to drive?
14:25Under your instruction, yes.
14:27What do I do?
14:28Pull this lever.
14:29One more.
14:31Yeah.
14:33I hear the roar of the engine.
14:37Passing the level crossing.
14:40Very good.
14:42Our lovely train sets forth.
14:45A bit more power.
14:48Oh, I'm loving this.
14:50Was it in beautiful condition when you ported?
14:52It was in scrap condition.
14:54Everything was broken down.
14:56So, I still have a lot of work to do.
14:59And now you can go to the maximum.
15:04It's really very exciting.
15:07The power of this locomotive is so impressive.
15:11Coasting along.
15:13Doing great.
15:14Born talent.
15:18Now that you own this locomotive, what do you think of the design of it?
15:23You immediately see that this was the first design of a mainline diesel locomotive.
15:29I'm sitting here with my knees to the cushions.
15:32There is no room, so they had some work still to be done after this design.
15:37So, I love it, actually.
15:39I love the way they were learning at that time.
15:41Yes.
15:42It's a part of history.
15:44Yeah.
15:52Wim, thank you very much.
15:54With pleasure.
15:55I really enjoyed that.
15:56And good luck with your locomotive.
16:00The line runs through the villages and countryside of an area known as Skellaland.
16:05And includes many level crossings.
16:07Hello.
16:08Hello.
16:08My name is Michael.
16:09This one is manned by the Railway Association's president, Sander Byens.
16:14I'm Sander. Nice to meet you.
16:15Sander, great to see you.
16:17Now, I believe you have a very special level crossing here.
16:19It's a hand-operated barrier.
16:23Excellent. And it works?
16:24It's fully restored.
16:26So, it works. Perfect.
16:27If you want, sir, you can try it.
16:29I'd love to.
16:30Here it goes.
16:34Oh, it comes down pretty quickly, doesn't it?
16:38Indeed.
16:40You have to be a little bit strong for this.
16:42You do.
16:43I'm going to give you a good pull.
16:46And it's in position.
16:47You can show the flag to the train driver.
16:49And then it's good to go.
16:51This is my big moment here.
16:52This is my big moment.
16:54This is my big moment.
16:54This is my big moment.
16:57This is my big moment.
17:00This is my big moment.
17:01This is my big moment.
17:13At the line's depot at Basruda Nord, they house the rolling stock,
17:18including ten steam locomotives, two of which are in working condition.
17:24The Railway Association's General Secretary and one of the drivers on the line is Artur Kopitas.
17:31Artur, you and the other volunteers have restored a very historic railway line here.
17:35When did trains first run on this line?
17:39First in passenger service, it was constructed in the 1880s by the Belgian States Railway,
17:46and they ran trains until 1980 on passenger service east.
17:50You've got a plaque on your locomotive. What does that tell us?
17:53It says in Dutch, proud of our Belgian heritage.
17:56Belgium exported locomotives to all places in the world,
18:01and that is something that's easily forgotten here in Belgium.
18:04This is something that we did well, one of the best in the world, and we need to still be
18:09proud of it.
18:10And the locomotive, how old is she?
18:12The locomotive was constructed in 1927 near Brussels.
18:17The restoration was completed in 2007 and 2014.
18:20We had a big overhaul, and now it's still running very shiny today.
18:25What amazing patience you must all have.
18:28Yeah. Most work is in the winter when we don't run trains, maintaining the locomotive, maintaining the railway line.
18:34A lot of effort goes into that.
18:35I can't imagine what it must feel like if this has been in restoration for years, and it goes out
18:41on the track.
18:41That must have been a fantastic feeling for all of you.
18:44Yeah. It's very satisfying when we get to see happy travelers on the train.
18:48Well, I'm headed down the line. Would you very kindly drive me, please?
18:52Of course.
18:53Thank you very much.
19:10I'm sitting in third class.
19:12I think in some languages, they call it hard class, for a very good reason.
19:18You bring your own upholstery.
19:46From Antwerp, my journey continues through Flanders.
19:50Heading 36 miles west to Belgium's third largest city.
19:56My next stop will be Ghent.
19:58Historically one of the greatest cities in Europe, controlled by wealthy merchants.
20:04It has often been subdued and often resisted.
20:08The unofficial anthem of the city tells of the Roland bell, which used to ring out to warn the citizens
20:14of danger.
20:15Until it was removed by the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Charles V, who crushed Ghent and hanged
20:2425 of its burghers for its refusal to pay him high taxes.
20:30To this day, annually, citizens parade with nooses around their necks in order to commemorate that humiliation and to reassert
20:40their defiance of oppression.
20:51At the confluence of the rivers Scheldt and Leia, the port of Ghent was built to serve a hugely prosperous
20:59textile industry.
21:00From the 11th century, it was famed throughout Europe for its luxury woollen cloth.
21:11Lining the canals and flanking the medieval squares, there are more heritage buildings here than anywhere in the country.
21:19And in the heart of the city, the superb Gothic cathedral of St Bavo houses an artistic masterpiece.
21:27I have never had the privilege of studying history of art, which I think is a fascinating subject.
21:34It seeks to answer questions like how the technology of painting advanced with the introduction of oils and new colours
21:42for artists.
21:42How they improved their technical skills, for example, representing perspective on a flat surface.
21:49How they revealed the divine, populating their paintings with the earthly models who lived about them.
21:57I think I will learn a lot here in Ghent, as I view for the first time a painting that
22:04represented an enormous step forward.
22:16Peter Schmidt, theology professor and canon here at the cathedral, will be my guide.
22:22Peter, hello, what a pleasure.
22:25Hello, Michael. Pleased to meet you.
22:27Peter, I was so looking forward to coming here and seeing a work of art, that I didn't think much
22:33about what St Bavo's cathedral would be like.
22:35It is magnificent, a great, tiring edifice. Tell me a little of its history.
22:40Well, in the 16th century, it has become cartesian, but before it was a parish church, the oldest parish church
22:49in Ghent.
22:50It was not dedicated to St Bavo, but to St John the Baptist.
22:54And the crypt that still exists dates from 1150.
23:00It really is a thing of beauty. And of course, it tells us how extraordinarily rich Ghent was.
23:07Yes, yes, yes. The rich citizens of Ghent paid mostly for the building of this cathedral, and they were able
23:15to give it these real magnificent dimensions.
23:19A prominent 15th century merchant, Jodocus Vade, built this chantry chapel, and commissioned a vast painting by the Flemish artists
23:28Jan and Hubert van Eyck.
23:32Peter, a moment of great theatricality, as the curtains opened to reveal the great masterpiece, which is very well protected
23:42behind glass.
23:44Unveiled in 1432, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, also known as the Ghent Altarpiece, is one of the world's
23:52great art treasures.
23:54It was created by two brothers, Hubert and Jan van Eyck.
24:02We are fairly sure that what we see here was all done by Jan van Eyck, and what we see
24:09are two portraits of Jodocus Vade and his wife, Elizabeth Bollut, the donors.
24:16They wanted this painting to be part of the daily mass, in honor of God, for the salvation of their
24:25souls.
24:26Yes.
24:26In the midst, you have Saint John the Baptist, who was the patron saint of the church.
24:32And then what we see there is the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she will become the mother of
24:38the Messiah.
24:40When we open the altar piece, it tells us the Messiah has come.
24:46The inspiring interior paintings would be revealed to parishioners only on Sundays and important religious festivals.
24:54Finally, we have this extraordinary display.
24:57And what I'm noticing, Peter, is that the palette is quite different now.
25:01We have many more vibrant colors.
25:04Tell me what is happening in the main panel.
25:06The lamp, which obviously is Jesus Christ, is on an altar.
25:11It is during mass.
25:13Around are all the people, you may say the whole world, redeemed by Christ.
25:19Why is this painting regarded as so important and so influential?
25:24From the beginning, people were astonished by the genius of the work.
25:30Here was the birth of something new.
25:33The composition and the color and the technical perfection.
25:39It's the first work of such dimensions also that has been painted with oil paint.
25:45And in oil, you had the possibility to work in layers and to correct.
25:51And so they could go much further in detail than with the ancient techniques of painting.
25:57Over the centuries, this revered work of art has been stolen more times than any other painting, most recently by
26:06the Nazis in the 1940s.
26:09The first theft was in fact the central part by the French revolutionaries in 1793.
26:18The doors went to what is now the Louvre.
26:21After Napoleon, they came back.
26:24But the most famous of all is in 1934, the Just Judges.
26:30The copy is a very good one, painted in 1939.
26:34It was a double panel.
26:36On the other side, you have John the Baptist.
26:39Yes.
26:39The thief gave John the Baptist back to prove that he had the other one.
26:44We know the thief was a very well-known Catholic person.
26:49We have at least 125 hypotheses where it could be.
26:55It has never been retrieved.
26:58Peter, it's been an enormous privilege to see the painting for the first time with you.
27:18Glorious buildings tell us that fortunes were made in Antwerp from diamonds and in Ghent from textiles.
27:25These businessmen believed in making money.
27:29But more profoundly, they hoped for salvation and feared damnation.
27:36When I saw the panel doors opening on the altarpiece in Ghent, I had a moment of historical insight.
27:44These people thought that a lifetime on earth was nothing.
27:49What mattered was an eternity in either heaven or hell.
28:00Next time, now I see what has made this line so famous.
28:05Great sandy beaches stretching down to the North Sea.
28:10When it was invented, no one knew about jazz.
28:12No, and that's the sad thing.
28:14Adolf Sachs never got to see the birth of the music that made the saxophone really big.
28:19This bird will cross the Mediterranean and Sahara to winter in Western Africa.
28:25Amazing.
28:25It is amazing.
28:26Bon voyage.
28:27Bon voyage.
28:31See you next time,
28:31Canada,
28:31African Base,
28:31...
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