2-888-351 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ostend, 1850. 'Ostend at the best is not remarkably lively; those tall massive houses with peaked gables, narrow windows diminishing in lugubrious perspective, for all their gaudy whitewash, through furlongs of rocky pavements, till they close up against some dingy chapel or storehouse, bounded on every side by sandy ramparts or dreary fosses, and an occasional glimpse of a muddy sea, like an illimitable Thames beyond, do not form a very enlivening scene...The preparations [for the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Belgium], says the Times Correspondent, are rather meagre as yet. A small triumphal arch has been erected on the route from the terminus to the Royal residence, the consular flags are fluttering from all quarters, and there is no stinted display of the Belgian tricolor'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.