Firework festival in Duinbergen
Anne posted a tutorial how to take good pictures of fireworks at the end of July. Well I had not read it and this is a guide on how to take crappy pictures of fireworks. So when you see these, you better go and read her instructions to do a better job than I did.
But I was not prepared as it was my friend with whome we visited the Zwin that pointed out to me there were fireworks in Duinbergen that night for the International Firework Festival. This is something Jan and I and her attended decades ago (I remember the horrible traffic getting out of Knokke at night). But I had completely zapped the fact that this was still an annual festival and that it would start when we were in the neighbourhood.
But I was not prepared as it was my friend with whome we visited the Zwin that pointed out to me there were fireworks in Duinbergen that night for the International Firework Festival. This is something Jan and I and her attended decades ago (I remember the horrible traffic getting out of Knokke at night). But I had completely zapped the fact that this was still an annual festival and that it would start when we were in the neighbourhood.
We had already plans to have dinner in Den Haan that night but thanks to the coastal tram, we just trammed back to the other side. We did that because we realised the children had never seen fireworks, besides some amateur flares sent up to the sky on New Year's Eve.
When I grew up, there seemed to be a lot more occasions to see professional fireworks. I guess each town of some size had some occasions during the year with fireworks: our national holiday (eg in Ghent during the Gentse Feesten), the fair in Deinze in the summer, New Year's Eve in many cities, the fair in Leuven each September etc... But a lot (most?) cities stopped in the recent decades for environmental (and budgetreasons. Fireworks have been forbidden in Leuven for a decade or so, Deinze is not having any more, Gent stopped having fireworks at the national holiday etc... I think I only know you can see professional fireworks at New Year's Eve in Antwerp or Brussels and other than that I don't know with certainty other occasions.
So but surely the International Fireworks festival in Knokke in August is an occasion and it draws big crowds. While we were sitting for a drink, just hords of people kept walking all in the same direction for over an hour. So many people that we concluded to do the opposite: we'd walk away from Duinbergen in the direction of Heist and watch from a distance. This should enable us also to catch one of the more scarce trams later at night just before it was over and ensure we'd not have to walk home.
When I grew up, there seemed to be a lot more occasions to see professional fireworks. I guess each town of some size had some occasions during the year with fireworks: our national holiday (eg in Ghent during the Gentse Feesten), the fair in Deinze in the summer, New Year's Eve in many cities, the fair in Leuven each September etc... But a lot (most?) cities stopped in the recent decades for environmental (and budgetreasons. Fireworks have been forbidden in Leuven for a decade or so, Deinze is not having any more, Gent stopped having fireworks at the national holiday etc... I think I only know you can see professional fireworks at New Year's Eve in Antwerp or Brussels and other than that I don't know with certainty other occasions.
So but surely the International Fireworks festival in Knokke in August is an occasion and it draws big crowds. While we were sitting for a drink, just hords of people kept walking all in the same direction for over an hour. So many people that we concluded to do the opposite: we'd walk away from Duinbergen in the direction of Heist and watch from a distance. This should enable us also to catch one of the more scarce trams later at night just before it was over and ensure we'd not have to walk home.
I felt guilty for our boys , not allowing them to see the festival closeby where there's also music and fire acts on the beach itself, but it is what it is. I just didn't feel comfortable squeezing them in the crowd to push them to see something. Now we just watched the high flares from a large distance. But they still were very impressed.
And some crappy iphone pictures of it all result in this....sometimes it just looks as if there is a big inferno on the beach in the distance :D. Sorry, Anne.
Comments