Being in Amsterdam for 2 weeks we decided that part way through we would take a small trip elsewhere for a few days. Originally we were going to go to Brussels in Belgium – it’s only about 2 hours from Amsterdam by bus. After discussing with Pete he suggested we do Bruges instead. It’s a few more hours on a bus but he had heard it was a more enjoyable destination as he had friends that had visited both Brussels and Bruges and they much preferred Bruges. It was set. We left earlish on Monday the 23rd and arrived for lunch. Being dropped at the station with only an address for the hostel we were staying we found a street map and wrote out the directions we needed to take. Half an hour in we found another map to confirm where we were/ where we were heading. We figured out that we’d missed the street turn off and mapped out a new route from the location we were now. Again after another 30minutes following the directions we had we discovered we had missed the street again. Finally we just followed a canal and eventually made it to our hostel. It was a lovely scenic route wandering in the sun.
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| Gem Mapping Out Our Route |
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| Market Square |
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| ICE CREAM! |
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| Chilling at the end of a Canal, by Jan Van Eyck statue |
That first day we wondered through the main squares in the city and grabbed lunch and ate under a monument in the sun. Following it up with dessert from Da Vinci ice creamery – we had been informed it was the best in town; and we were impressed. A little tired we relaxed reading our books (Gem is reading The Slap and enjoying it; while I’m nearly half way through Robinson Crusoe, a slower read but I’m enjoying it.) and napped before going out for dinner up the street. Here we mapped out and planed our route for the next full day of exploring Bruges. After, we went for a pint in the pub attached to the hostel and watched a movie before heading to bed.
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| Brugge Houses by Th Canal |
Up bright and early to get a good start on our day, eating breakfast (included in the Hostel package – WIN!) in the Restaurant next door. Here we recorded our Birthday message for Jason; getting strange looks as we sang into the computer. Firstly we started on the east side of the cities edge climbing 4 different windmills along the canal. Following that canal along we passed Grootseeminarie - a catholic priest school; and entered a hidden romantic court yard. The map we had highlighted Hof Bladelin which is unique because it use to be the property of the rich Italian family De Medici. The guide said we were to ring the door bell and one of the nuns which now lived there would let us in. That is just how it happened, they let us in, then they re-entered their house and we were free to enjoy the beautiful walled off courtyard. From the street, you would have no idea that it was there behind the door.
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| White Windmill |
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| Gem Sitting on the Red Windmill |
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| The Black Windmill |
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| Claire sitting on the Red Windmill |
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| The Swans! |
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| De Medici Gardens |
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| The Entry |
The Belfry was our next stop and is at the head of one of the main squares in the town and has over 366 steps to the top. We had hoped to be up there while the bells chimed as we had heard them the day before. Waiting by the cogs at 12 they did not ring, by the time it got to 12:28 we were sure they would chime for 12:30 and the mechanics began to wind, and with excitement Gem began to record what was happening, still no chime at 12:30 and by 12:32 we gave up and continued up the very top of the tower, where we had an amazing view of the surrounding cityscape.
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| View from the top of te Belfry |
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| Bells in the Belfry |
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| Belfry Steps |
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| The Belfry |
After we sat on the steps, soaking up the sun in the Burg square waiting for the Church next door to reopen, watching buskers. Particularly this little green man posing as a statue –he was quite cute. We’d seen him the day before and I had actually initially thought he was a real statue, being small and matching the colour of other statues around the city. This Church was Called Holy Blood Chapel because it housed the ‘Holy Blood Cylinder’. This Cylinder is believed to be filled with Jesus’ Blood. Apparently, as a miracle it has been known to transform from solid to liquid and back again; on the other hand science shows it could just be due to temperature change. People come to line up and you are meant to place your hand over it and pray. We weren’t notified of the process until handed a flyer following a viewing so I just touched it and looked; while Gemma was a little grossed out and resisted touching it. To be fair, it truly wasn’t pretty.
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| Gem Eating Belgium Waffels |
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| Claire Eating Belgium Waffels |
Via the Pandreitje which is an old prison converted into over 100 apartments we continued to Gruuthuse (an old Palace) which had an exhibition on the development of Bruges through the years as well as other historic pieces. Being a traveller through Bruges has its advantages as the ‘junior’ rate for this exhibition ranged from 17-26 and it was only 1 Euro. The Church of Our Lady next door housed Michelangelo’s ‘Madonna with child’. As a juxtaposition we after ventured to find what has been titled Bruges’s Red Light District. From the description on the map we were expecting old drawings and paintings on walls of a small street of exposed people. Finding it we actually discovered a glassed notice board with a few printed suggestive cartoons from back in the day. Back to moral wanderings we finished our self guided tour in the Beguines houses – a smaller community inside the city for women, particularly nuns or alike, which contains garden areas and canals featuring many swans and wild life. Funny enough this interesting map we’ve been following highlighted this as a ‘Place to Kiss’ there were a few of these noted on the map as well as parks described as good for Frisbees & cute asses.
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| Pulpit in the Church of Our Lady |
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| Michelangelo's Madonna with Child |
Collecting dinner from a cute family owned deli (the 9 year old son helped serve us), after dropping our stuff home, we ate on the steps of a church across from our hostel, soaking up the final parts of the sun. That night we also watched the Movie ‘In Bruges’ and were able to point out places we’d been that day and understand the importance of the swans in making this city ‘a #*$!ing fairytale’. (An edited quote from the movie). Our other favourite quote was “If I were retarded, and born on a farm, Bruges might impress me. But I wasn’t, so it doesn’t.”
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| Movie Quote Written on the Wall inside the Belfry Tower |
Our final day in Bruges we were going to dedicate to the markets they had on in Market square and other souvenir shopping before dropping by our final destinations on the map. As we entered the Markets in the morning we discovered it was specifically for fresh fruit and veg, meat and flowers. We wondered through sampled fruits, in particular some sweet pineapple that was handed to us by a man in his stall yelling things in Dutch about his fruits to customers.
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| Fruit and Veg Market |
We then started looking for the lace stores that crowd the city. Every other day we had been unable to get away from them but today it seemed that we were ‘Touristicly retarded’, and managed to find ourselves temporary lost in the commercial area. Eventually we found the stores we wanted and popped in and out comparing stock. For lunch we made our way to this Italian Restaurant named Medard. This was a place highlighted on our very informative map, and we tried to get a table the day before but they were full. Here we ordered the house specialty – small spaghetti for 3 Euro. Receiving the plate we found the small was quite large and very filling, so we were highly impressed and wondered the size of a large until we saw a man order it... Massive, but he had just ridden 40 odd Km so he deserved it. It was also delicious. Gemma has added this to the list of her ‘best of things’. She recognises that we haven’t made it through Italy yet, but that this bowl of spaghetti was the best she has eaten.
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| Bubbles in Market Square |
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| Spaghetti Lunch |
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| Gem Ready for the Bus Ride Home, With all her bags |
Before heading for the bus back to Amsterdam we walked through the Smedebpoort which is an old gate way into the city. Here hangs a scull (well now it’s a bronze replica) of a traitor, who in 1688 opened the gates to enemies. Finally we spent just under an hour under a tree in the park across from the bus station reading our books on a rug and eating more of our Belgian Chocolate. YUM.
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| Traitors Scull |
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| Reading in the Park |
