May 22, 2018

    Today we took the train from Brussels to Brugge, Belgium.  It was sunny most of the day.  The temperature started at 14°C and reached about 23°C with a refreshing breeze blowing.

   As we were walking to the train station, we heard police sirens and looked to see police cars and motorcycles leading a convoy of black cars, travelling the maximum speed limit going around traffic.  Later, when we returned to the hotel, we learned that Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was in Brussels to address the European Parliament regarding the Internet data breach involving Facebook.

    We caught the train to Brugge arriving just before 10 a.m. We stopped at the information booth and obtained a detailed map of the historical center of Brugge. The Dijver river runs through the Centrum (city center). Dijver is the Celtic word for holy water. The many canals connect Brugge to the Zwin estuary, the North Sea and the inland city of Gent.  We walked along many of the canals as we explored the historic Centrum. There are many medieval buildings in this oldest medieval city in Europe.  Brugge is sometimes called the “Venice of the north.”

   We left the modern train station and walked to the nearby canal to follow it toward the Centrum. We found a tower by a bridge near the locks, at the wide section called Minnewater lake, which was once the harbour for large barges. Across the water was an attractive red brick villa that is now a restaurant. As we continued the stroll along the Begijneu west path, we came upon a place covered with ducks and large white swans.  We could hear the clipping and clopping of the horses pulling the carriages along the cobbled streets most of the day in Brugge. First stop was Begijnhof, a 1240 Flemish beguine, where religious women, not wanting to be nuns, widows and spinsters who wanted to live in self-sufficient “cities of peace”. The large courtyard was bordered by white houses and in the past was surrounded by a wall, a moat and had its own chapel.  Further along the canal we came the Church of Our Lady with its 115 meter brick tower and steeple and the old St. John Hospital. Inside the church is the Michelangelo sculpture “Madonna and Child”. Since Brugge was a major trade center there were Italian merchants often in the city and the sculpture was brought to Brugge in the 16^thcentury, the only Michelangelo sculpture that is outside of Italy today.  The hospital served people for 800 years until 1976 when a new hospital was built. It is now a museum.  It looks medieval and not at all like a hospital.

    As we strolled, we encountered many groups of student ranging in age from elementary to high school and then older tour groups with guides speaking different languages.

   Lodewijk van Gruuthuse was a beer brewer whose grandfather added groot, which is peeled barley or wheat, to the basic German beer recipe.  The family made a fortune selling beer.  They also were a prominent family in Gent.  They founded the second market that has been in the same spot on the Dijver river for 200 years.

   Next was Burg Square with the old buildings from its days as the administration center for the area.  This place was settled in the third century. In the ninth century the Count of Flanders chose the square as his headquarters since it already had fortification against attacks from Vikings (Ireland & Britain also were subjected to Viking attacks). In the square today is the 14^thcentury Town Hall; the Maison of the Liberty of Brugge, where the law courts were housed until 1795; the gilded Records house; and the building with the Basilica of the Holy Blood above and the Treasury Room on the ground level.

   The next square was the capacious open-air Market Square, lined with restaurants, museums and souvenir shops. There were at least a dozen horse drawn carriages waiting for passengers. You could easily miss them in the huge space. One of the buildings had two large golden suns. 

    Jan Van Eyck square at the end of a canal was the next place.  This was a trading boat harbour. Jan Van Eyck was a famous 15^thcentury Flemish religious artist. Today, in the water, is a large statue of a whale which is constructed from plastic garbage that was collected on Hawaiian beaches. It is a plea to the world to stop pollution especially with plastics.  It is known as StudioKCA, the Brugge Whale.  There is a contemporary art and architecture collection of pieces in the historic center of Brugge, Triennial Brugge 2018, and this may be one of the pieces. We were not paying too much attention but saw the symbol and explanation of some works as we wandered in the historic area.  There was a modern white pedestrian bridge across one of the canals and in another canal a white metal and wood 100 square meter floating island which may have been part of the collection.  Surrounding the square are more interesting houses dating back to the 13^thcentury. One was first restored in 1877 when city aldermen realized the value of the old buildings.  One of the buildings with the clock was the old Toll House, the narrow house beside was it was the Dockers meeting place in the Middle Ages. The Burgher house had a tower. There was an example of a wooden clad house.  This type of house was banned from being built in the 1700s due to the fire hazard of burning wood. 

     Then we ventured toward the eastern side of the Ring Canal to see some old windmills and passed St. Sebastian’s Archers Guildhall, with its tall narrow red brick tower.  At the end of the street was a park along the canal with four windmills. The closet one was Sint Janshuis mill.  Distance walked was 7.08 km.

   We walked a little further to see if we could find a building with an interesting roofline, but it was somewhere in a courtyard and we could not find it, but we did see another Triennial Brugge 2018 metal sculpture near Church of Our Lady Potterie.  We crossed on old hand operated drawbridge over a canal and were in front of 18^thcentury double house with bay windows on the second level on our way back to the old center for a snack. As we got close to one of the churches, the bells played a one-minute long tune for the half hour. After 3.5 hours of walking and sightseeing we stepped into Maxim’s Lunch. Claire had Belgium waffles with fresh strawberries and whipped cream and Larry had a ham and cheese panini with tea. The distance was then 11.73 km. On the way back to the train station, we took a 30 minute canal boat ride along the canals that we had walked along during the day. The cost was about $13 Canadian each. The afternoon was sunny and the temperature was 23°C.  We passed the Palace of Justice; 13^thcentury main bridge; the St. Anne canal houses; the medieval harbour with the whale made of Hawaiian waste; passed the canal to the North Sea which is only 12 km away and the canal to Gent.  We passed Our Lady Church and its ugly monster statues on its roof and turned around at the Lock House that controls the lock that is not far from the train station.  We learned that there are 41 bridges in Brugge that cross the canals or the river. After the cruise, we walked back to the train station and caught a train back to Brussels.  Distance walked when we left Brugge was 14.74 km almost 20,000 steps. The clouds looked dark as we waited for passengers at Aalter station.  Just as the train approached Gent station the rain started and lasted about 20 minutes ending hallway to Brussels.  When we arrived in Brussels the streets were damp.

    We walked from the train station to the hotel with a stop at a grocery store for salads, drinks and cookies for dinner.  We didn’t want to go out for dinner.

    On the news today:  The volcano Kilauea in Hawaii has been erupting since May 4 and today lava was flowing toward a geothermal power plant and the plant is being shut down. The lava has reached the ocean and sending up toxic gases in the steam.

    End of day distance walked16.40 km (22,043 steps)