Gdansk, where the Van Den Block's are well-known

First published May 13, 2005

We started the morning with a visit to the Boyen Fort, a fortified castle from the Napoleonic wars, which reminds me of the Casemats like the ones you can find in Luxembourg, Dinant, Huy or Diest.

After that we drove to Gdansk by some small routes, a real experience...but more about that later.

Gdansk is one of the most beautiful cities in Poland, maybe even in the whole of Eastern Europe. And it has 2 special meanings for Frank : first of all it is the City of the Van Den Blocks, and secondly a good friend of him lives there, Kinga.

First something about the Van Den Blocks. When I looked up my name "Van Den Block" a couple of years ago in the Google and Yahoo search engines, I received almost only websited in Poland. This was very strange, since my name is a very Flemish name which is now only used in the region of Grimbergen, Zemst and Brussels.

According to the websites there was a whole artistic family in Gdanks under the name of Wilhelm, Izaak, Jacob and Abraham Van Den Block, descending from Flanders (probably the area around Mechelen or Zemst). They were painters, architects, sculptors. And everywhere in Gdansk you can find monuments with their name on. I hope to go to Gdansk in a couple of years and study this for a longer period. It is one of the reasons why I want to improve my Polish.

More about Kinga in the next article.....