Inna and I ended up spending a few weeks in Belgium because of a movie. We watched the twistedly-hilarious “In Bruges”. We were enchanted by Bruge’s Medieval architecture and we said, “Some day we simply have to visit Bruges.” So Bruges was added to our bucket list where it has sat patiently for the past ten years. Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent were but afterthoughts – just unfamiliar places that sounded cool to check out on our way to Bruges.
It’s just a thirty minute train ride from Ghent to Bruges, through the usual flat farm land and small towns of Belgium. After a couple of weeks in-country it had started to lose its luster.
There were the standard issue cows and farm fields that reminded me of Maryland.
Glass greenhouses sprouted from the fields bordering the train tracks because the weather is usually cold and wet and the Belgians strive for homegrown sustainability when it comes to their food.
And the nation that is synonymous with windmills has erected the modern version for energy production across the tabletop and windy countryside. There are long lines of them encircling almost every town.
And most of the sturdy houses have expansive dark solar panels. In some cases they take up the entire roof. It seems odd that a country where the sun rarely makes an extended appearance could be willing to invest so heavily in solar. I guess that solar thing really works!
The whole country is essentially underwater so they pump the water to canals. We could learn a lot from the Belgians in this regard as climate change and sea level rise comes knocking on our doors.
The interior of the Bruges Train Station was quite attractive, with handsome frescoes lining the walls.
But the outside looked like big block institutional architecture from the fifties. It reminded me of many of the buildings in Moscow.
There were lots of Arabs dressed in black drapes and the place had the feel of a third world country.
The station is about two miles from the city center but their bus system is very easy to figure out because the numbers don’t really matter. They all run from from the central square to the train station. So any bus we picked would take us to our destination. But in order to avoid a lot of stops along the way, we waited for an express bus.
We were staying at the four star Grand Hotel Casselbergh about five minutes from the main square (Markt) where the bus dropped us off. The hotel’s interior was like something out of the Golden Age and we felt like royalty. Staying in a palace was a great way to end our trip to Belgium. http://www.grandhotelcasselbergh.be/en/
We quickly unpacked and freshened up and by one we were heading back to the Markt Square in the heart of the city. Our first stop was Burg Square, a large open plaza ringed with grand old buildings. In Bruges, there is no “old city”. The whole place is old. Bruges is like a hermetically sealed Medieval town. But it doesn’t seem like a real working city. It is more like an ancient theme park, like Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, where time stands still. And at first, it is quite charming.
There are very few cars. The locals get around on bikes and scooters.
And the tourons ride in horse-drawn carriages. The clip-clop of horses hooves on the cobbled streets is like a never-ending musical soundtrack that you hear wherever you go.
The Markt Square is similar to the ones in Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels, only much smaller. And to be honest, nothing can compare to the Grand Place in Brussels, so let’s just say that we were less than impressed. I mean, it was quaint and quite lovely, but if you’ve seen one Belgian square you pretty much have seen them all. There is the rocket ship church (Church of Our Lady), the Bell Tower (Belfort), City Hall (Stadhuis), and a magnificent assortment of gilded Guild Houses all in a row like monumental chess pieces. It’s just a matter of scale, with Brussels at the top and Bruges at the bottom.
It was yet another warm, sunny day, so we stopped at an outdoor cafe in the Markt Square and decided to have a beer. At this point I had sampled over thirty different Belgian beers.
The cafe offered some great views and the people watching was very entertaining. There had been some big religious celebration the previous day and the viewing stands were still in place. So people lounged in the bleachers like it was a mini Times Square in New York.
There are very few modern buildings in the center of Bruges. Everything is full-on Medieval, dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. It really is quite stunning in a make believe sort of way.
We decided to check out the city’s most celebrated museum, the incredibly well hidden Groeninge Museum, which is home to a wild assortment of paintings from the great Flemish masters, from Magritte down through time to Heironymous Bosch.
Rene Magritte’s – The Assault
I was captivated by Gerard David’s – Judgement of Cambyses (1498), depicting a corrupt judge being publicly skinned alive for his crimes. The painting originally hung in the city’s main court room as a brutal object lesson; which, if you think about it, is actually quite clever.
I’m a sucker for anything painted by Bosch and I spent almost thirty minutes checking out the intricate and insane painting entitled Last Judgement, with Christ descending in a bubble while little naked humans and strange animals cavorted with wanton abandon inside a Medieval theme park while many of the miscreants were being elaborately executed on weird torture devises. There were hundreds of different elements to this often funny, and rather disturbing, piece of art and as always, I walked away wondering how someone from the 15th century could paint such wild and vivid visions of beauty and brutality.
After the Groeninge Museum it was time for another beer in Markt Square.
After our stop for a frosty beverage we decided to put away the map and just go for a lazy stroll for the next two hours. And at that point, it suddenly hit us that we had walked every street in town at least once. Bruges is really tiny.
And all roads seemed to invariably lead us back to the Belfort in Markt Square.
The one thing you can always count on when you visit a Medieval city is the creepy religious relic. In Bruges it is found in the Basilica of the Holy Blood. And with a name like that, you know that it’s gotta be good and cheesy. The basilica looks more like a gold encrusted spit-level home than a church and it dates back to 1150. We’re talking OLD old. According to legend, a brave Crusader built the church to house several drops of Christ’s blood that he purchased when he was over in Jerusalem fighting the Muslims. This is one of the most popular attractions in Bruges. The Romanesque church on the first floor is free. But it costs two euro to see the holy blood up in the Gothic chapel on the second floor, which is basically a red smear which could easily have been dried tomato paste, sitting inside a six-inch crystal tube in an ornate silver tabernacle on the altar. They only open the tabernacle doors on Fridays. I’m not sure why. And frankly, we didn’t really think it was the blood of Christ anyhow.
It had cooled down at this point and a lot of the tourons had gone back to their hotel rooms to rest before dinner, so we decided to take a Canal Ride. As with all the Belgian towns we visited, the last ride of the day was at six, and that’s the one we caught. Seeing these Medieval towns at night would be awesome, but I guess the residents like a little peace and quiet when the sun goes down.
Our Captain was an irreverent fellow named Miguel. It was his last run of the day, so he was rather profane as he gave us his own twisted history of the town. He had a very interesting perspective on Trump – “a jackass”, Napoleon – “a goddamn thief and a liar”, and the swans – “white rats with long necks”. We found the 45-minute ride quite amusing, though we figured Miguel was ad-libbing most of the time. We didn’t mind Captain Miguel’s rants because he was funny and the canned spiels the boat captains usually mumble are mind-numbingly boring.
If you only get one thing out of my travelogue it should be this: the best way to see Bruges is by riding in a canal boat. Just try and get one that isn’t too crowded. Mornings are the best time, right when the tours first get started.
It turned out that the place where we caught the canal ride was next to a bridge overlooking the place in the movie “In Bruges” where Collin Farrell jumps out of his hotel room and lands in a canal boat before being shot in the chest. We agreed that when we returned home we needed to rent the movie and see what we thought of it after visiting Bruges.
After our pleasant boat ride, we strolled through the main shopping district on Steestraat Street where I saw an amazing sight: a McDonald’s on the first floor of a Medieval Gothic building that was originally a guild house. There were fancy stores on the first floors of all the old buildings.
We ended our first, action-packed day in Bruges with a splendid dinner at a restaurant called Le Panier D’Or on Markt Square.
And a beer.
When evening finally descended, around ten, they lit up the buildings in the square, trying to make it look like Brussels. We found it enchanting, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the Grand Place is Brussels. What can?
We took advantage of our palatial digs at the Grand Hotel Casselbergh the next morning so we didn’t hit the town until the crack of noon. Our first stop was City Hall (Stadius). They charge four euro and it’s worth every penny. The white sandstone building, dating to the 1400s, is adorned with statues of former nobility and still serves as the town’s city hall. It is also a very popular place to get married. We saw a couple in full wedding regalia posing for photos and their photographer was using a drone to capture some aerial shots.
The Gothic Room on the second floor was filled with mind-blowing visual wonders: wood carvings, paintings, sculptures, maps, flags, shields, hand-carved wooden chairs, and a series of breath-taking murals that wrapped around the room, showing scenes from the momentous events in the town’s storied history.
It was another hot day and we headed over to the Bell Tower. The lower part of the tower was erected in 1300, and the octagonal lantern on the top was added in 1486. Our plan was to climb the 366 steps to the top where we could view the carillon and see the whole town from up on high. But when we walked into the courtyard we were already sweating bullets, the line to go up into the hot box tower was out the door, and there was some inviting shade with an unoccupied bench in the stone plaza that was beckoning to us.
We were sitting there, trying to convince ourselves to join the line for the tower walk when two local artists pulled up on their bikes and started setting up shop. One of them put a canvas on his easel and then painted “FUCK TRUMP”. He stepped back admiringly and then sat down next to me with a satisfied nod of his head. He said his name was Michael and we struck up a conversation while Inna talked Russian to the other artist whose specialty was cutting a person’s silhouette on black and white paper with scissors. It only took him a few minutes to create an amazing work of art.
A fat guy strolled over. He managed the Belfort. He told the painter that he had to erase his political message because it was rude and might offend the tourists. Michael happily obliged and then painted a dreamy beach scene in less that five minutes. A tourist ambled by, admiring the attractive painting, and bought it for twenty-five euro. Not bad for five minutes work.
The artists invited us to join them for coffee and we walked over to their favorite hangout off Markt Square called Brazila. Michael explained that he had gone to a prestigious art school and even taught there for awhile, but that the best money was doing street art. He pulled in a very tidy yearly income and came and went as he pleased. The owner of the cafe had hung one of the silhouette artist’s large installations on the back wall.
Our two artist friends headed back to the Belfort and Inna and I walked over to the Markt Square to catch the Legends of Bruges Free Walking Tour that left at two. http://legendsofbruges.be/legends-of-bruges/
They promised to hit all the best attractions, most of which we had already seen but knew little about.
Our guide was a very animated guy who emphasized his points by lunging forward and then quickly stepping back. It was a little manic, but he had a loud voice so we never missed his rather interesting historical and cultural factoids. Free walking tours are very popular in Europe. You will find them in every city. And they are more about telling good stories and explaining what makes their town tick, not regurgitated history.
I liked the concept so much that I came back to Annapolis and just started Free! Annapolis Walking Tours. http://www.bystevecarr.com/free-annapolis-walking-tours/
And as promised, during our two hour tour we hit all the hotspots: Market Square, cloth halls, the palace of Gruuthuse, old St John’s hospital, the Beguinage, Lake of Love, Half Moon brewery, Stove street, Church of Our Lady, Bonifacius Bridge, the Groeninge Museum, Dijver, Rozenhoedkaai, the Fish Market and Burg Square.
Other interesting stops included a famous Medieval pub.
Medieval streets.
Stove Street, the narrowest street in town and once the home of the city’s best whore houses.
The Royal Palace Gate. The palace was undergoing major renovations and was draped in scaffolding.
The town’s world famous Halfmoon Brewery.
The Begijnhoff Nunnery. Its tree-lined pathway was like an outdoor church, and all of the tourons spoke in a whisper, not wanting to break the peaceful quiet.
The “Water of Love” (Minnewater) which used to be the city’s busy harbor was like a postcard. Siltation eventually filled it in and now it’s a quiet oasis at the south end of town lined with weeping willows and lazy swan who lounge around the grassy, shit-stained banks like homeless beggars.
I asked our animated guide, “Why are there so many swans?” And of course, the answer came in the form of a legend. Back in the 15th-century, the Mayor of Bruges, a fellow with an abnormally long neck, collaborated with those nasty Austrians. So the citizens of Bruges cut of his head for being a traitor. The Austrians prophesied that the town would be overrun by long-necked swans, to forever remind them of their hideous crime. And to this day, the town is teeming with the haughty critters who act like they own the place.
The fish and meat market is now where artists sell their paintings.
Cute little houses frame the picturesque canals.
And it seemed like every street had at least one place selling French fries. In Belgium, French fries rule! And for some inexplicable reason, they like to dip them in mayonnaise.
Inna showed amazing restraint when it came to chocolate. I mean, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a chocolate shop in any Belgian city. It’s a huge part of the economy. On our final day, Inna finally broke down and went into Chocolaterie de Burg, the best chocolate shop in Bruges, and loaded up with some incredibly delicious candies.
We decided to grab an early dinner at Tom Pouce on Burg Square.
And a beer
After dinner, we went for another walk and realized that we were walking down the same street for like the fifth time. Clearly, we had seen all that Bruges had to offer.
So it was time for a last beer at Markt Square where we people watched before heading back to our wonderful hotel. We had a long train ride the next day back to Amsterdam and we wanted to just chill on our last night in Belgium.
Brugge is a cute little town.
But it isn’t a real town. It’s more like a toy town.
As I mentioned in the beginning, we became fascinated by the town of Bruges after watching the movie “In Bruges”. And there’s a very funny exchange between two hit men that pretty much sums up the way I felt about Bruges.
Harry: [about Ray] So he’s having a really nice time?
Ken: Well, I’m having a really nice time. I’m not sure it’s really his cup of tea.
Harry: [after a long pause] What?
Ken: You know, I’m not sure it’s really his thing.
Harry: What do you mean it’s not really his thing? What’s that supposed to mean? It’s not really his thing. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
Ken: Nothing, Harry.
Harry: It’s a fairytale town, isn’t it? How’s a fairytale town not somebody’s fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody’s fucking thing, eh?
Ken: What I think I meant to say was…
Harry: [Interrupts] Is the swans still there?
Ken: Yeah, there’s swans…
Harry: How can fucking swans not fucking be somebody’s fucking thing, eh? How can that be?