September 24 – Brugge

Today we travelled northeast into Belgium to Brugge, which is in the Flemish section of the country.  Brugge is the capital of the Belgium province of Flanders. In the first world war this was where several crucial battles took place.  It is the setting of the classic Canadian poem “In Flanders Fields”.

Brugge is a UNESCO heritage site. The historic old town in Brugge is considered an outstanding example of an Gothic architecture, that demonstrates the commercial and cultural styles of medieval Europe. It was a pleasure walking through the maze of narrow streets, enjoying the canals, strolling through the impressive town square, and viewing the charming old gabled houses. City bylaws ensure that the center looks much as it did in medieval days.

Brugge has firmly established itself as one of centres for the chocolate business. You can't walk down any street without tripping over a chocolatier, I suspect that it has the highest concentration of candy stores anywhere in the world.

The Flemish language is based on Dutch instead of French.  So we have zero percent comprehension of the language.  Fortunately English is widely spoken and understood.

The ride from Lille took about an hour along a very smooth highway.  It seemed that each town along the road had several industrial parks.  So we assume that unemployment is not a problem here.

The central part of the town is very well layout, with wide roads and easy to follow directions, as long as you don’t rely on the GPS.

The GPS did its best to screw us.  Starting when we left the hotel in Lille, it decided on it’s own to revert from our intended destination in Brugge back to our hotel in Lille.  Once we had reset our destination to the hotel in Brugge, it did its best to avoid our hotel and tried to send us down one way streets the wrong way.  When we did find our hotel, we had to find a parking lot several blocks away from the hotel to park the car for the duration of our stay.  Marg had no problem getting us there by reading a street map.

We are staying at the Hotel Biskajer.  It is a very nice boutique hotel in the center of the old town.  The room is larger than most European hotels and is very clean and comfortable.  The front desk staff was very helpful in telling us what attractions to see and where to go for food and the best spot to park our car.

Marg is very happy because we have several English TV stations.  Tonight we are watching a Brad Pitt movie called the Counselor.

For lunch we had a local speciality.  Mussels and Frites.   There was a large bowl of mussels and a full plate of fries.  We topped it off with a Belgium blonde beer.

In the afternoon we went to the Chocolate Museum.  It was very interesting.  A good portion of the museum was devoted to the history of how chocolate went from being a sacred spice for the Aztecs to a medicinal and social drink in Europe.  At the end of the tour there was a demonstration on how chocolates are formed and of course a tasting.  It seems that every fifth store along the main shopping streets are chocolate shops

St. Ursula in the Brugge Hospital  by Henri Dobbelaere

We then went the Groeninge Museum.  Here there are many wonderful examples of Flemish art from the 16^th to the 20^th century.  As we stated in an earlier blog this is our favorite style of painting.

Clock tower in town square

Brugge has a wonderful town market square with a massive bell tower.  It dominates the entire old city. The facades of the buildings are very Dutch in style and quite unique from the towns in France.

One of the first things we noticed was that a large portion of the population ride bikes.  It reminds us a lot of Amsterdam.

One of the most original museums that we've encounter is here in Brugge.  It is a museum devoted to potatoes and fried potatoes in particular.

There are several canals in Brugge.  It adds to scenic splendor of the town

Spinolarei Canal

For supper we found a nice little restaurant called Malpertuus.  Marg had rabbit cooked in beer and I had fish stew.  We washed it down with a nice Merlot.  Again it was another four star experience.

Outside of the restaurant a brass Dixieland band played for about an hour.