3 days in Bruges, Belgium
We took the train from Amsterdam. It was eventful! First, there was smoke that caused a 20 minute delay as we were leaving the station. Then the tracks were having work done, so we were rerouted and had to change trains in Rotterdam and Dordrecht. This made us late for our planned connections. Thankfully, we just made the next hour’s connection with only minutes to spare in Antwerp and Gent. Again, dogs on the train! 🙂
Off the train, and into the streets…I love the sound of the luggage wheels ca-chunk, ca-chunk, ca-chunk over the cobblestone streets. When we arrived at our B&B (Koen & Annemie Dieltiens), our hosts were out of town, but had left a note to have the neighbors let us in. We left our bags behind and wandered to the canal market at Dijver. We dined in a French tea room on lasagne, soup and ice cream while watching the birds in a giant cage with an upturned cooking pot on top.
In our wanderings that evening, we found the Dreupelhuisje. This bar had Belgian beers and flavored jenevers and was decked out for Easter and oozed ambiance. Thousands of yellow feathers hung individually from the ceiling on different lengths of string for Easter. Candles lit the small room–candles at the bar, in the windows, on the tables…everywhere. Books were pinned open and arranged on the wall like pictures, with dried roses as accents hanging beside them. There were murals, tulips, wooden windows from an old French church. Cirque du Soliel music played in the background. We sat at the bar and sampled a variety of flavored jenevers from the tulip shaped glasses. Filled to the very brim, we learned from our bartender Dominique that it was respectful to bend to the glass and sip it before picking it up. This place would become our “local” for the 3 days we were in Bruges.
We toured the Belfort Tower…366 narrow steps to the top and were actually standing with the bells when they rang 11 o’clock. Wonderful views of the red tiled roofs of the city. We sat in the sun and enjoyed waffles and coffee for Bel 150. Then made our way to the Jerusalem church and the lace-making center.
So, lace making…it’s done with bobbins…hundreds of bobbins, each tied with thin threads that are then moved individually around the pins and across the table in a certain order to complete a special pattern. We watched one woman speeding the bobbins around–like she was just wiping them off the table–yet a beautiful pattern of lace was left behind. She was known as the TGV (which stands for the fast train that runs between Brussels and Paris).
One day, we went to the Begijnhof. A courtyard with beautiful willow trees and blooming daffodils. Peaceful. We saw the Michelangelo Virgin and Child in smooth white marble at the Church of Our Lady.
Later we sat in the sun and tried mussels at Vivaldi. This episode stays with us to this day. My perspective: “Hmmm, we’re in Belgium. We should try the mussels…it’s a Belgian thing.” The mussels arrive. I bite into sand. Ugh. Bryan’s perspective: “You ordered mussels and then made me eat them”. 🙂
On our last afternoon in Belgium, Bryan would buy Belgian chocolate and I bought lace. We basked in the sun on the steps of the Belfrey before a cheap Pizza Hut dinner and drinks at the Dreupelhuisje.
The next day, we would take the TGV fast train to Paris.
