James Tucker in Cov

These shops in Brussels (top), Leiden (middle) and Amsterdam (etc) are all about 3 feet deep, and built up against the wall of a church- which presumably gets rent. I've never seen it outside the low countries, but since it's across both Catholic and Protestant lands, and seems to date from the 16-1700s, I guess it's more a local custom than anything else.
But, then, I haven't checked or anything.
There's also clearly been no preservation society that decided that the stores must go, and the church stay, and that's probably the more likely reason for the difference. St. Paul's Churchyard used to be full of bookshops, if I remember.

Just along the coast from Whitstable, on the north side of Kent, it Herne Bay. Herne Bay has been a tourist destination for a long time, and has been built that way as a result. It once boasted the second-longest pleasure pier in England, complete with railway to get to the attractions. Sadly the middle part fell down in a storm decades away, and the end is stranded out there in the sea (right). The end still attached to shore is an enormous, sea-worthy roller-rink. This may be related to why Whitstable is now the chic sea-side resort.
Herne still draws in huge number of visitors, mainly from Kent, for mini-golf, arcades, and standard summer attractions, as well as a good few brave souls who want to swim in the Thames Estuary/ North Sea (I did). It's also in view of the Sea Forts and the offshore windfarms. and has the ruins of Reculver church on the horizon. About the only flaw I can think of with the views is the 60s pleasure pier and the fact that the sun sets behind you, over land.

I was in Belgium again last weekend, and this time took a day-trip to Ghent, which is a little North-West of Brussels, but is a thoroughly Flemish town. Like Bruges, it peaked in the 13th century, and remains a tourist site largely due to the buildings and history of that period. Unlike Bruges, it's a fair-sized town in its own right, and has more going on than just the tourist industry. As a result, it's not quite as picturesque, but there's more to do there, and it's more surprising when an aristocrat's castle pops up on a side street.
The main focus of the town, like Bruges, is the town tower/carillon/safehouse, though this one is not attached to a great hall like in Bruges. Instead, the hall adjoining was started in the 1300s and finished in the 1900s. The great tower does have some companions, though, those of the church of St Nicolas and the Cathedral of St Bavo. St. Bavo's contains a huge Van Eyck altarpiece from the early 1400s, which we got to see. Like so many great churches I've seen in the Netherlands and Belgium (Leiden, Utrecht), St Bavo's has been through some rough times and been rebuilt since. In this case, it has brick ceiling vaults from the 16th C, as apparently the entire roof fell in at this stage. There was substantial work going on in any case; the entire choir was off-limits while we were there.
Ghent has a castle built as much to intimidate the town as to protect it, and a couple of nobles' houses meant to shelter the rulers from the people. It also has some interesting communal and guild buildings along its riverfront- for weighing and storing grain, and for regulating trade, mainly. The grain stores, the really old buildings, do look their age, but also look really Dutch, with gables and stepped frontages.
Like the hall in the main square, the Stadt-house had to be finished after a long gap due to the decline of the city's fortunes. It was started in one style (flamboyant gothic) and finished in another (cod-neoclassical). Like a lot of additions to older buildings, the new style was ground-breaking, different, and conveniently, cheaper. Without all the stonemasons carving small statues and filigree, the look of the building was mainly down to one man- the architect.

It's been a pretty grim summer, weather-wise, but Laura and I took advantage of the nice weather the other week to go to the North Kentish sea-side, at Whitstable. It's quite popular as a resort these days because it was never a resort before, and so is quaint and 'authentic'. There are still oyster-fishers and whatnot around, so it is a bit like an East-Coast fishing village.
Whitstable is famous for its little paths leading down to the beach, one of which (Squeeze-gut Alley) is less than two feet across at one end. Besides that, and an ersatz castle at one end of the beach, the attractions were good fish and chip shops, boat tours out to the seal colonies, wind turbines and sea forts, and the various beach-huts people were renting to stay in down the bay. Besides the traditional British sea-side shack, there were converted fish-smoking huts, grain stores and boathouses to stay in, almost all of which were sided in clapboard (rare in the UK). These buildings aren't quite as immediately on the sea as they were, as the town is vulnerable to flooding, and so a sea-wall provides a nice walkway alond the steep pebble beach, and puts you above both the water and the town.
I find it interesting that just around the headland, a mile away, Hearne Bay is no-where near as prosperous, because since the 1880s they have built attractions, hotels and a bandstand, and are thus, today, 'tacky'. We've since been to Hearne, and it doesn't have the same feel as Whitstable, but it's more of a proper summer day at the Midway/Beach/Fair. But that'll be another post.