Chris Murphy @ Zennegat 13 in Mechelen BE

The Leuven canal or the Leuven-Dijle canal was dug from 1750 to 1753 with a patent from Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria to supply raw materials, mainly to the Leuven breweries. The Leuven city council had campaigned for more than two hundred years for a connection to the sea to promote its trade. The canal is one of the oldest dug waterways in Belgium. Café Zennegat – built together with the locks and the lock house in 1750 – is the only remaining business in the hamlet of Zennegat, at the time a busy stopping place for bargemen, river pilots and boat tuggers. And also for day trippers. Eel in green was considered the regional dish. And thirst could be quenched in no fewer than nine inns. In addition to his ferry service and café, Polleke-den-overzetter also had a grocery store and for skippers’ wives there was even a shop selling fabrics and hosiery. In the late 1960s, the Mechelen Vismarkt and the Haverwerf were taken over by the hippies and a few years later the rebellious people also settled at the Zennegat. As if the so-called long-haired, work-shy scum had anything to do with water. The native and elderly Zennegat resident Sander certainly had no questions and immediately feasted his eyes: power flower girls who came to splash around naked at the lock. “That damned goddamn bitch is a real pain in the ass, you gotta!” The locks of the Zennegat undoubtedly became the gates of his heaven on earth. Rik Wouters (1882-1916), the world-famous Belgian Fauvist, also liked to relax and sketch there. The café is immortalized in two of his etchings.