Bruges
This quaint, beautiful city is near the north coast of Belgium, with canals, old buildings, stunning towers and an impressive central square. It was an important and wealthy trading center, starting in the 13th century. It was one of the first tourist cities in the world, starting in the mid 19th century when the British and the French came to see the sights. Undamaged during the world wars, restoration work started in the 1960’s to spruce up the city. There are now around 8 million visitors a year. Being near Ghent and Brussels (and it being tourist season), most tourists come to Bruge as a day trip. Late morning the crowds roll in like the tide and stay until around 6 pm when the town empties out. So we figured out it is best to see the sights in the morning, visit a park in the early afternoon, take a rest in the hotel until late afternoon and come back out in the early evening when the tide had receded.
The Belfry
The wealthy merchants had a market hall. Starting in the 13th century they built a tower out of stone and brick, with a wooden roof. Every time the roof was struck by lightning and burned, they would build the tower higher, and put on a new wooden roof. At some point they gave up on the wooden roof and finished it off with a stone parapet.. End of fires and rebuilding. The tower houses bells of various sizes, a carillon played on a keyboard, and a giant programmable mechanical musicbox mechanism that plays on the hour.
Church of Our Lady
This church houses the only Michelangelo sculpture to leave Italy during his lifetime. Madonna and Child. It was purchased by a couple of Bruges brothers and shipped to the city in the early 1400’s. I feel sorry for whoever carved the adjacent sculptures in the alter piece, because Mike’s sculpture is so sublime. The sculpture was stolen twice (by Napoleon and Hitler) and returned twice. Watch the movie “Monuments Men” to learn more. The church also has some intricately carved wooden confessionals, and burial vaults with internal paintings (all the rage in the 14th century).
Brussels
Musical Instruments Museum
The museum houses a unique, large collection of old instruments. The audio guide played recordings of many of the instruments being played with music of the time period (lots of beautiful Bach and Mozart). It was so interesting to see/hear all the variations of stringed, woodwinds, brass, percussion instruments of the past and admire the ingenuity of the progression of development of these instruments.
The Grand Place, Brussels
This is a truly impressive square, lined with old buildings each with golden trim. Most impressive at dusk or dark when the building lights are on. There were also a truly impressive number of tourists there. In the nearby Royal Galleries there were high end stores and lots of chocolate stores.
Pretty much what the name suggests, it is a statue of a little boy, doing what little boys do, into a fountain. Beyond that, over the ages, the statue has been outfitted with different costumes for various events. No one knows exactly when this started, but there is a painting from the 1600’s that shows the statue in a costume for a festival. Over 3,000 costumes have been made and given to the city for the statue to wear, coming from all over the world. There is a small, delightful museum that displays some of these costumes. All costumes need to leave a hole for the, uh, fountain action. There was also a girl peeing statue called Jeanneke Pis and a peeing dog statue called Zinneke Pis, which we did not visit.
Ghent
We took a one day excursion out to Ghent on a fairly rainy day. Another beautiful city with old buildings next to canals, large churches, and a castle right in town. We were kind of castled out at this point so did not go inside this one…
We did visit the Museum of Industry in Ghent. Really interesting display of cotton machinery and videos with actors describing life as factory workers and owners over the ages. Also the history of printing and textiles.
So we now say farewell to Belgium, to Tin Tin, and his dog Snowy. Next up, we fly north to Stockholm Sweden!
Leave a Reply