Brugge, Belgium

Ah......Brugge. This was a town that I remembered my friend Jan telling me about when I came to Europe with my sons over 15 years ago. She told me, "Too bad you can't get to Brugge....it's so pretty, and they have beautiful lace, chocolate, canals, bridges".


It is, indeed, called "the Venice of the North".

We arrived at nearly dusk, checked into our small hotel in this medieval city, and went for a walk searching for a place to eat our late dinner. The beauty of Brugge in the evening just whetted my appetite for what we were to see the next day.

We awoke to the "clip-clop, clip-clop" of the horse-drawn carriages that carry dreamy tourists all around the town. Cars are not prohibited here, but are discouraged. Most people walk and bicycle......

We headed for the plaza in the middle of the town and enjoyed, of course, Belgian waffles~

....while we watched the horses get ready for their daily trots throughout the town, and listened to the old belltower sing out the time every 15 minutes with a carrilon of 47 bells. This belfry was built in the 13th century.

Brugge was at one time a seacoast village and harbor before 1000 A.D. on the North Sea. But it silted up around 1050 A.D. and Brugge found itself isolated from the bustling trade business, becoming a dying city. Canals were built to help bring more trade, and along with that the famous dikes. In the 1800's, the city was revived with tourism and most came for the beauty and the artisans that lived there (lace and woolens). There are now over 20,000 people living in the older part of the city, with over 100,000 who live in the outside areas. I can see why the tourists come. It is peaceful and one of the most picturesque cities I have ever visited. In the afternoon we took a narrated boat ride through the town along the canals.

I think I could live here......

One of the things I wanted to do was to rent a bike and go out into the country. We headed along the dikes and rode for about an hour, passing windmills, to the town of Damme. We were amazed to see that we were actually biking BELOW sea level when we weren't on the dikes!

Our evening walk after a Belgian dinner was magical, filled with lighted canals and old churches, and lace and chocolate in the windows.

We had to leave this little idyllic town the next morning and head back to Brussels to catch the afternoon train. But first we took a "deviation" to see the harbor on the North Sea, the town of Zerbrugge. This is one of Europe's most important ports. We could see why....there were ships of all sizes with containers ready to head towards many European cities.

But when we got back to Brussels, we discovered that the entire town was blocked off to cars because it was their yearly "NO DRIVE DAY"! Stopped by the police, we had to explain that we were tourists with a rental car and had to get to the train station. They reluctantly let us go through the barricades and Lyle drove through the thousands of bike-riders and pedestrians who had free-reign of the city streets. With map in hand, I about had a heart-attack trying to get us to the station around all of the blocked streets. But, leave it to Lyle's nose, he got us there with no strain on his part. I, however, wobbled with weak knees to the train.