Fade in to: Two friends walking through an old, medieval city
Ben: Bruges is a shithole.
Kenna: Bruges is NOT a shithole.
Ben: Bruges IS a shithole.
Kenna: Ben, we've only just got off the f*&king train, can we reserve judgement on Bruges until you've even SEEN the f&*king place?
Bruges, Belgium: April 9th - 13th
For those of you that haven't seen the movie In Bruges, you're missing out. Its excellent, and that exchange above is how the first scene of the movie begins. So, we stepped off the train and naturally started quoting the movie. Of course. That was part of the reason we were going there in the first place, because Kenna had loved the movie so much (I loved it too, but I didn't see it until she showed it to me shortly before our trip). As our tourist map stated in its "Five minute history of Bruges" area, someone calls Bruges a shithole and the tourists come flocking.
Bruges is really NOT a shithole at all. It is a beautiful, old, perfectly preserved medieval city. It is also one of the most touristy places I've ever been in my life. A city is like an ecosystem: there are certain niches that need to be filled for the city to survive, and if they are overfilled then natural selection will take over and weed out the weak. Unfortunately, tourism changes the equation: in Bruges, there was a drastic hypersaturation of restaurants. In any other city, none of them would survive because there are simply too many for any one to do well. In a tourist city, people need places to eat. Thus Bruges provides.
We stepped off the train and made our way over to the north side of town and our hostel, a lovely little place called "Snuffel Backpacker Hostel". It was more of a complex, really, consisting of a couple of different adjacent buildings all connected together. It had a pretty decent bar on the ground floor, through which one had to walk in order to cross the courtyard to the shower building. Other than that journey, which was usually made as the bar was filling up around 10 pm, it was a pretty solid place to stay.
The first evening we were there we got in pretty late. Thus, the first thing we did was go off in search of food. We found food at a wonderful little bar/grill/restaurant entitled "De Hobbit". Win. :) I first encountered the complexity and length of a Belgian beer list here, and didn't really know what to do about it. A word to the wise: Bavaria, and Germany in general, may be known for beer, but it has NOTHING on Belgium. Bayern is more quantity (as in, go in, order a Maß, which means liter, drink it, order another, repeat), whereas Belgium is about variety. Some of the bars we went to, which should really be classified more as 'beer cafes' or 'beer pubs', served upwards of 400-500 different styles and varieties of beers. All of the beers I tried were delicious, but more on this later. Food at De Hobbit was tasty, but nothing exceptional. We then went to the center platz and took artsy pictures of the tower at night, followed by returning to the hostel and passing out with exhaustion from traveling.
The second day we got our start early: up and out and down to the canals in time for the first boat tour at 10 AM. The boat tour, while extremely touristy like the rest of the city, was actually really cool. There are some places in this little medieval city that are far better when seen from the water of the myriad canals that criss-cross the Altstadt. Included in our sightseeing were many places used in the movie, so pictures were naturally captured. These you can see on facebook as soon as I get them up there.
After the boat tour, we climbed the highest tower of the city, the old city bell tower. They still use the bells in there to ring out the time, and it was to the misfortune of our ears that bells rang while we were in the tower. They had some sort of musical instrument set up to play the bells, much as one would play an organ or piano, only instead of pipes/strings the keys control the hammers in bells. The view from up top was wonderful - we could see the entire city, as well as much of the surrounding country. Upon our descent from the tower we decided to search out some lunch.
After lunch, we decided to do some more of the stereotypical touristy things in Bruges: the Groeninge Museum, containing artworks of the 'Flemish Primitives', which is a school of art in the late middle ages/early renaissance, then the old palace (Gruuthuse), then the Church of Our Lady, which has a Michelangelo sculpture within. The Flemish primitives were actually really impressive. I'm not particularly an art aficionado (alright, lets face it, I get bored quickly in art museums), but I found it really cool how the painters were able to capture very realistic hair/clothing textures. The Gruuthuse was underwhelming. What we thought was a Schloss was actually a museum - it WAS the old palace, but had since been turned into a historical museum about human occupation of that area of Belgium. Boring, rather. The church was also slightly underwhelming. It was BEAUTIFUL, of course, and the statue was impressive, but it had totally sold its soul to tourism. I'm not religious, but I think its terrible how all these giant, gorgeous old cathedrals have become completely enthralled by tourism. I don't think that they should stop letting in visitors, but I do think they should enforce quiet and above all allow FREE entry. I think it is terrible how churches force visitors to pay to see most of the inside of a church. Absolutely awful. Ok. Rant over.
Following our tourist afternoon, we went and walked along the outer canal of Bruges, in a park that took the walker around the outskirts of the old city. We saw a couple medieval city gates, the only parts of the city walls to remain standing, as well as a skull mounted on one of the gates to warn of the consequences to traitors. We took our time heading through the park, and during one of our many stops I attempted to teach Kenna how to juggle, using chestnuts. It was difficult to teach with chestnuts. :( There was also a cute little Belgian girl who came running up and wanted to learn - I tried to teach, but she spoke neither English nor German, and its hard to teach without language. Oh well. I juggled in Bruges :)
Dinner that evening was at a local little hole in the wall recommended by a guy at our hostel - it was fantastically delicious. After dining, we returned home for the evening.
Day two began early again with a visit to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. This Basilica claims to have a vial of Jesus' blood that magically becomes liquid every time a certain ceremony is invoked. Naturally, we weren't allowed to see it other than during the ceremony, but the Basilica was really pretty. For those of you who have seen In Bruges, what they call the Basilica of the Holy Blood in the movie is actually NOT the right place - we believe that what is shown is actually the Jerusalem Church, but that has not been confirmed.
After the Basilica was the Lace museum. Bruges, and Flanders in general, has historically been a center of production of Lace. The museum was cool, and showed how lace is made as well as a bunch of impressive examples. After lunch, we meandered through the city, taking our time (and finding incredible Belgian waffle street food) on our way to a local brewery of Bruges, that is called "De Halve Maan." We had a tour of this brewery, as well as samples of their delicious beer :) If any of you have a chance to try it, I recommend the Straffe Hendrik - a tripel beer, darkish, strong and flavorful.
Our well irrigated bodies then found their ways to the diamond museum of Bruges. Belgium was, and to some degree still is, a center of the worlds diamond industry. I believe that it is Antwerp which is one of the largest diamond processing centers in the world. Bruges was a huge economic powerhouse in the medieval period, so before Antwerp it was Bruges that was the center of the diamond industry - hence the so dedicated museum. Lots of shiny things. Lots of history. :)
Finally, we walked through a park - but not just any park. Those of you familiar with the movie will of course remember zee alcoves, zee little nooks und crannies: Konigen Astrid Park. It was very similar to the movie, a beautiful little park, and the blue gazebo was there just as it was in the movie. Unfortunately, the playground was different so we could not re-enact that scene. It was a beautiful day, though, and the park was nice just to hang out for the remainder of the afternoon.
The last two days are, unfortunately, blending together in my mind. Overall, we went to the hospital museum (one of the first hospitals), Benguinage (some sort of nunnery with a cool church and grounds), chocolate museum, frite museum, Konigen Astrid Park (again), and a park with stereotypical windmills. The chocolate museum was cool - it traced the history of chocolate through the perspective of Belgium, being as it is famous for chocolates. Unfortunately, in this museum we ran into some little french children.
Those of you that know me know that I'm not a fan of kids in general, but these kids were little monsters (and it was made worse by the fact that they were speaking french, an unattractive jabbery slurry language). They were loud, running around the whole museum, uncourteous, piggish, and rude. There was a chocolate demonstration (showing how to make pralines, the delicious little filled chocolates that Belgium is famous for), and they crowed the railing and literally pushed people out of the way so they could be up front. They also migrated to the free chocolate like homing beacons even though it was being passed around evenly. The teachers need lessons in keeping control of their brats.
Ok. Back to the awesomeness of Bruges :) Our last evening there we (relatively) splurged on dinner, going to a delicious restaurant where Kenna tried rabbit for the first time, and I had a pretty good steak (along with two delicious glasses of the house-brewed beer). After dinner, we went to a famous beer-bar/cafe/pub type place called 'de Garre,' and hung out there while having their delicious house beer, a 'Tripel de Garre'. Yum.
Our last morning in Bruges, we visited a wonderful farmers market on the main square in order to procure sustinence for our long journey back to Regensburg that afternoon/evening. We found the most delectable cheese: it was a Brie-type cheese, but flavored with wild herbs, garlic, and onion. It was SO good, and spread it on a baguette with a little ham....it was a tasty lunch. :) Our train left Bruges early afternoon, about 1.30, and we began the cross-europe train journey to get back; 8 hours later, we arrived in Regensburg for the night. We decided to do it this way so that we didn't have to spend the entirety of one of our days travelling; not only is it difficult to get an overnight train to Vienna, but we wanted a short time at home to do laundry, repack, and (for me) pick up my computer.
12 hours after we got in, we were right back out: 9.30 in the morning our train left for Wien. Four hours later we alighted in a city that was for a time the political power center of Europe, and is still a major cultural center for the entire world.
No comments:
Post a Comment