3 & 4 June 2014
Readers may recall that on our last visit to Brugge (l understand that it is also called Bruges) it rained and consequently we decided that one day we would return and revisit the town. To revisit on this trip was a decision made at the time of booking our flights and the reason we started in London.
We left London on Eurostar and after a short wait at Brussels to catch a connecting train, eventually arrived in Brugge in the early afternoon. After booking into our hotel, we meandered around the old town looking for supermarkets (breakfast supplies and, most importantly French reds) which we were able to locate very easily thanks to Google maps.
The weather forecast indicated a repeat of our last visit ; dry on day 1 and raining on day 2. As a consequence, we decided to target outdoor activities on day 1 and indoor activities day 2. This time we bought raincoats and umbrellas with us, which turned out to be a great decision.
We found the two sites that we particularly wanted to visit, both indoor sites. Having established those sites we set out to just walk around and take in the old buildings and architecture of the town - some of the buildings were erected in the 12th century and have lasted very well. Brugge has been described as a medieval town and the Wikipedia entry on it makes informative reading - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges
We stumbled across some businesses offering canal cruises - Brugge has been described as the Venice of the North and for good reason - there are canals everywhere. The cruise was good value and there were occasions when we did feel that we were in Venice. At other times, the buildings appeared to be straight out of Paris or rural Netherlands.
After the cruise we returned to the hotel and had a freshen up before venturing out for dinner which was to be the local speciality of mussels and chips. We were quite surprised to see the streets almost deserted.
The two things we observed when we first started our walk through the old town was the very large number of people (tourists, just like us) that were around (compared to our last trip) and the very noticeable increase in prices.
Having written that, it was so quiet that the eateries we first went to, at 8pm, were all in the process of closing. However, we did check out their on-street menus and could see that the price of mussels and chips had increased by around 50% We eventually found a strip of eateries that were open in the town square, due mostly to the reason that there were still some of the very sparsely number of diners there still finishing their meals, and settled down to eat. No drinks though, €8 or around $12 for a glass of cheap house white wasn't going to happen.
The next day, after having a bit of a lie in because it was raining, we set off for the Church of Our Lady, clad in rain jackets and sheltering under umbrellas. This church contains the Madonna of Brugge, created by Michaelangelo. The church was undergoing renovations so we couldn't see too much, but the statue was, well, pretty impressive. Not that big, but impressive nevertheless.
Next stop was the Brugge Belfrey. It is a tower, that like Pisa, has a bit of a lean on it, around a metre at the top. In this instance, the tower sits on top of another building, sort of like a medieval town hall. We arrived at the bottom of the tower, we discovered that there was an €8 charge to ascend the tower. Gloria quite rightfully identified that this was a charge to exhaust ourselves, as the tower is 83 metres high with 366 steps on a narrow and steep staircase. We had to get down as well ! We decided that we do something else instead.
We set off to take a look at the windmills situated along the canals set at the outer edge of the old town. It was here that we stumbled upon two sets of old town gates and were fortunate enough to see two barges pass through the bridges on the canal. The bridges are lifted on one side by hydraulic means and the barges are very very long. Traffic is held up for quite a few minutes when these boats go through the bridges, and it takes quite a while to clear the traffic after the barge has passed.
Tomorrow we set off for Berlin by train, something I'm looking forward to because you really see the countryside very well from a train.
