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Brugge, Belgium
We rattled and splashed across England through a gray and rainy day. Just outside Bristol, the rain so hard the traffic was slowed, windshield wipers on high, blinding backspray from tanker trucks ... but only for a few minutes. Driving with the left side of the brain may make people more patient. Driving at high speeds on narrow roads is an exacting practise. Nobody took pictures. | ||
 Victoria Station at rush hour -- can you find us? |
By the time we returned the hired car, it was scarcely spitting, and it didn't come down again in earnest until we were on the London train. In London, we never went outside. BritRail attendants let long-distance train passengers onto the Underground to migrate amongst London's FOURTEEN railway termini? (Paris has six.) We timed our passage perfectly to coincide with rush hour ... NOT!
Nevertheless, Cornwall to Dover in a day without really breaking a sweat. |
We had our first encounter with an old-fashioned railway carriage. Maybe people were smaller then? What better time to appreciate the stoicism and decency of the British? In the spirit of celebrating differences, we, too, kept our upper lips stiffened right through unarguably the worst accommodation of the trip so far: the Priory Hotel in Dover. |
 Dover train: pretty to look at, uncomfortable to ride... |
 the proverbial white cliffs
Do currency exchange companies collude to keep ATMs away from railway stations and airports? In Belgium these operatives are called wissels -- no, it isn't pronounced "weasel" -- and they are masters at turning more into less. The current hustle is to convert the buying currency to euros (taking a percentage for the conversion) then into the host currency (taking another percentage) ... and then, of course, the exchange fee... | Getting standby on the first ferry to Belgium the next morning made up for the discomfort. A smooth two hour crossing, a little more fun than the Stena monsters because this boat did rock, and we disembarked into a squall in Oostend without a Belgian franc to our names.
the bridge of the HoverSpeed ferry to Oostend. |
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The squall passed; we got on a train and sped northeast across flat, rich agricultural countryside dissected by canals, highways, windrows, rail lines. On the horizon, higher trees and the spires of a different architecture, decelerating into a station accompanied by an incomprehensible loudspeaker message, and it's all so different! Europe... |
 view from our rooms |
After a few uneasy minutes, Chad came racing back with a happy glint and brought us to dream rooms on the second floor above a lovely restaurant a third of a block from Brugge's Central Markt.
"Too late for lunch? Of course not, sir, sit wherever you're comfortable. Our special today is moules, the first of the season..."
We walked our lunch off in different directions, Chad seeking an internet café while we walked aimlessly through the compact, fascinating little city. Brugge is shaped by its concentrically elliptical canals. |
We arrived during a celebration proclaiming Brugge "the cultural capital of Europe." It certainly seemed a reasonable assertion. The richest city in Europe in the 15th Century, it was frozen in time when its harbor silted up. Rediscovered in the Victorian era, and reopened to trade with the opening of a sea-canal to Zee-brugge, its city fathers again showed the wisdom to preserve the town's special qualities and gorgeous architecture. |
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Not exactly a fly trapped in amber, as the construction cranes in the background testify, Brugge is alive with change. A new concertgebouw is taking a beloved bit of park, but it will pay the community back. Generous big public spaces, little traffic, and many predominantly pedestrian streets make this a comfortable environment for humans ... what a concept! for a city.
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 Windmill pivot
The city's scale is human, large enough to provide a week of surprises, small enough to be comfortably meanderable on the first day. Every great city has one thing in common: approachable, kindly people. It helps (us benighted english-speakers) that English is the fourth language, spoken adequately by almost everyone we encountered.
Being centrally located, and up 48 narrow stairs, made us feel in the middle of things but completely safe; ours was the only apartment on our floor and, apart from the chambermaid, we never met anyone else on the stairs. Breakfast was elegantly simple, croissant and good bread, excellent tea, coffee, cheese, and ham, and each morning a different preserve. |
Life can't be that different for the residents. The residential streets wind in amongst the canals, too, and buildings are seldom more than three stories tall except near the center and on the prosperous streets where they are four. Lots of bicycles and even more walkers. A cafe culture that seems to find three or four opportunities each day to sit under an umbrella and watch the world flow (slowly) by. |
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 delicious dinners | To celebrate our deliverance, we found a little French restaurant and had a fine and gloriously presented but entirely too expensive dinner delightfully served by an attentive, very pregnant, server. |
By the second evening, we had adjusted to going out about 11am, a snack sometime in the afternoon, tea perhaps at 6pm, and dinner after 8pm. On this evening, the city began celebrating its cultural primacy with, of all things, the Klezmer All-Stars, a group of jewish wedding musicians from the U.S. |
 Klezmer All-Stars playing at Klinkers |
 seven styles of merchant home | Every tourist takes a boat trip, and we couldn't resist. The boat drivers navigate while telling stories about the city in four languages. Somehow, this managed to take any personality or relevance out of the performance, but we did get to see the city from water level. From there we got a great sense of the design strategies that make Brugge so much "of a piece" and such a pleasant, human-oriented settlement. |
The houses are built to a standard width, or double width for the wealthy, typically 16 meters wide. As befits this northern climate, they are built with common walls so that each residence (except for the corner ones) only radiates heat at the front, roof, and back. Most houses have a small back yard, originally a garden but now just as often a place for overflow due to too many things.
The facades are the principle means for differentiation, which is done with coats of arms, finials, and other architectural details. Otherwise, there is an orderly sameness to the window sizes and placements and the entries. |
 the sole remaining old-style wooden facade |
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