Beautiful Brugge

Really enjoyed myself today. ESN (Erasmus Student Network) organised a trip to Brugge, a smaller city 30 mins to the North by train. Its pronounced kinda like 'bruise' but with a je sound? It was built around the port there, but then unfortunately the coast moved about 20km away so now it is pretty much a tourist town! We had a bit of a guided tour around the city squares, the canals and learnt some of the history of the city. Like I mentioned, Brugge was built around the port it had, as Belgium was big in the cloth trade in medieval times, so raw wool and cotton materials would come in by ship to be made into cloth. Then we were told a story (doesn’t sound true but hey legends are nice). Apparently there was an uprising of the Brugge people against their French King, they killed his adviser who was his best friend, and whose name was the French word for ‘long neck’. The people demanded more freedoms and rights, and the King agreed on the condition that the people not kill him, and also that they keep and tend to the swans that live in the Canals, in memory of the King’s adviser ‘long neck’ – y’know, because swans have long necks! Anyway there are lots of beautiful swans still in the canals there. Apparently there was a big problem recently when avian flu came to Europe as all birds had to be caged by law, but the people of Brugge felt they had to still keep their historical duty to the swans, so they built cages over the canals for the Swans to live in, and still stay on the canals. Nice! Anyway I liked that story.

Brugge became a really poor city when the coastline moved away, so for 3 centuries they waited for a canal to be built so that ships could come in to the port. Finally a canal was built in 1907, but got destroyed 7 years later in WWI. Oh Dear! Today it has been rebuilt though so there is a canal from the sea into Brugge. I want to go back with my bike so I can cycle along it and visit the sea!

Some other highlights of the day were the chocolate museum and the Belfry tower view. We were trying to get into the Belfry tower to climb it and get a view of the city, but we went in the wrong door and ended up in a chocolate museum! Which was fantastic, lots of free testers there (like strawberries in white chocolate mmm). I couldn’t read the information signs as they were all in Flemish and French, but I got to see pictures of cacao and stuff! Then we found the right door to climb the Belfry. Apparently they aren’t that common in Europe, and are special to France and the Flemish region of Belgium. The tower itself was for a view of the city, to check for danger and to ring the bells if there was danger, to warn the people. Also the Belfry is where important documents were stored – specifically the documents that conferred rights from the King. Apparently if the documents were destroyed, then the people would have no rights, so they guarded them zealously, and they were all locked away in a box - but not too high up, so they could be easily carried to safety if there was a fire or accident in the Belfry. Anyway there are 300+ steps up really neat spiral stone staircases (very narrow and steep!) and there is a great view of the city from the top – with bells in your ears!

What else does Brugge have to offer? Well, Michaelangelo’s sculpture Maddona with Child is there. Also, there is supposedly the blood of Christ (‘Holy Blood’) in a vial that is laid out on a pillow each day for people to worship. We didn’t make it to the church that houses the Madonna with Child until 5 minutes after it closed, which is stink because I really wanted to see it, so I will have to go back sometime. Also, we didn’t go to see the Holy Blood because it is expensive to get in! Other things I loved about Brugge were the swans, the horse-drawn carts, the chocolate shops EVERYWHERE with free tasters! And also the streets are clean, whereas in Gent there are quite dirty :S. I thought Brugge was absolutely lovely and I hope to return! I took heaps of photos so check out my flickr page (link to the right) for the rest of them :)