Brugge=Bruges - Blogabond

Well, it soon became clear why this is the city tourists come to. It may not have more attractions than the other cities, but they are nicely squashed together: Bruges only has one industry, and it's tourism. Quite right too mind, every street is a historic delight.

It often feels like you're in Holland: they have clogs, canals, windmills, cute steppy roofed buildings...not much difference between my perceptions of the two, really. Which I suppose makes sense historically.

The hostel (the Europa) was a great improvement on Antwerp's...and while it's outside of the centre, as soon as you cross the canal you're in a really nice historic area, on a direct route to the centre.

And that's where I went...and found the beguinage, which is a sort of monastery. Every town seems to have one, but this one is special. It's so quiet, so calm and relaxed it almost makes you want to be a nun. Almost. There's a great round common in the middle, filled with slanting trees, and around it all these little old white houses. And the odd nun. Luckily not too many tourists make it round the corner, although we did have one exceptionally loud party of germans who were being very ignorant and taking no notice of the signs asking for silence.

Yes, a very special place, and there's also a little museum showing the insides of one building. Inside there was also a lady making lace, which is quite astonishing to see. the speed with which she moved the little bobbins is amazing, and how she kept track of where they all were I don't know.

Over the bridge out of the beguinage, the canals start, and views of the centre of Bruges start to appear. The cafe nearest to the bridge does excellent crepes!

Also special is Sint-Janshospitaal, the next place I got to. It was a huge complex, I think connected to the knights of St Johns, and inside is a fantastic pillared space, which was the hospital and now houses various treasures and artworks.

It seemed only proper to do the tourist thing and get a canal tour...this is the back of our driver/guides head...and that's me...the only pictures from the boat that didn't come out blurred, but it was definitely worth it anyway: it gives a very different perspective to the city.

This is the Smedenpoort, one of the gates to the city. I ended up here after a walk through the centre. It's a nice slightly upmarket area, and I had something to eat here in the early evening, and then thought I'd find a cinema. Now, there were meant to be two cinemas. I found the first one, but couldn't find the second. I eventually figured out this was because it had been turned into a theatre...and a curious one at that.

It's called The English Theatre of Bruges, and all the plays are in English. As I was the only customer at that point, I had a chat to the lady running the ticket office, who knew Stockport...small world isn't it. She had impeccable taste in music, and eventually we reached Scott Walker, who she knows better than I do! But then liking Scott Walker is a bit like being in some sort of secret club (like driving a Reliant Robin or something), so it didn't really matter. I'm not sure her marketing technique to new arrivals was the best though: "don't go into the theatre until the last minute, the music is awful".

Anyway, eventually the audience arrived/ reached double figures (just), and we all went in...she was right, the music was awful.

The play was called The Joy of Wine...it started off a bit dead, maybe because it's difficult to warm up an audience of 11 or so. But then somehow the offbeat very British humour started to make sense...and people started to laugh...and by the time we had reached the wine tasting I was cracking up. 10/10 for the play, and I hope the theatre succeeds, but the numbers are a bit worrying!

written by

martin_b on June 29, 2007 from Brugge, Belgium

from the travel blog: 10 days in Belgium

Send a Compliment

comment on this...