Another Great Escape

I never saw the movie In Bruges, and having now seen the real thing I don’t understand why the beautiful city is associated with Hell—there’s a line in the movie that says maybe that’s what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in Bruges.

It was a last-minute getaway; we were expecting company on the Isle of Wight and when plans changed and the weekend became free, it was an opportunity to dash off on Saturday morning to someplace near, potentially someplace warmer than England, and if possible someplace we’d not been. Bruges has been on my go-to list for some time now (it’s the canals; I have a mad  “thing” about water) so when Tim suggested it and the weather was looking sunny, I closed the browser open to Pisa and started guiding Tim to hotels with a canal view . . .

And in no time we found ourselves wandering Bruges’ centre—we parked the car and decided to walk, as having been rerouted due to road works our Google map directions were no longer applicable. The centre is compact enough to navigate on foot and in fact easier, as the roads are narrow, crowded with people, and often circular in direction.

When we found the hotel Die Swaene I was pleased to see its Old World style and, gleefully, windows opening up to the canal in our room. One of my favourite things to do during the weekend became sitting at the open window and waving to the tourists, 36 per open boat, gliding by along the canal. About every 10 minutes another boat packed with camera-carrying foreigners would look up as I waved, and I never failed to get at least one of the crowd to wave back. (And no, we never took the boat ourselves; Tim offered, but I preferred seeing it on foot).

I was expecting Bruges to be a lot like Amsterdam—the canals, stunning architecture, bicycles, shops, narrow cobbled streets. Bruges does have all of that, yet it felt quite different—the canals don’t dominate the city as much in Bruges, and the centre felt more open and light than Amsterdam. I hesitate because when I’ve been to Amsterdam it’s been cold and rainy, and that lends a certain ambience—closed, narrow, dark—whereas it was lovely and sunny in Bruges.

And I loved it, all of Bruges. It didn’t matter that I hate walking on cobbles and they were making me tired; I wanted to walk and see as much of the city in 36 hours as we could. And eat! We found a place for lunch shortly after checking in, and it was brill—the interior looked like a big kitchen, and Tim and I sat near the crepe oven where the owner would occasionally come to make one fresh for a diner. The service was a bit brusque, and the place was filled with an older crowd that didn’t look much like tourists. My simple croque-monsieur and white wine fortified me to spend the rest of the day exploring, a sole map in hand that Tim purchased for three euro.

Given it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, we hadn’t planned much; I spent about an hour on Friday looking at places to go—museums, churches, and medieval buildings worth a view. I also asked my friend Leah to recommend a few places to eat. The rest would just have to come together, and it did.

We spent some time at the Groeningemuseum, which holds six centuries of Flemish and Belgian painting. The museum was fairly empty, and we had opportunity to stroll through the rooms and take in the paintings at our leisure. My favourite was a portrait by Adriaen Thomasz Key—it is beautifully detailed, right down to the wrinkles around the eyes and the delicate structure of the fingers.

 Most streets you turn down in Bruges will have a niche within one of the old buildings displaying the Madonna, sometimes with child, and often with the words Ave Maria at the base—it would appear the Flemish are a largely Roman Catholic population. The buildings are lovely, with pretty ironwork on the windows and lace on the interior. The streets a distance from the centre were very quiet and often it was just the two of us strolling, peering in at windows and remarking about the varying ages of the buildings, some clearly more modern while others from the early 1900s wanting to be more like those far older on the same block. I wanted to go to the Church of Our Lady, which has one of the world's highest brick towers (so says the Wikipedia page). Michelangelo’s sculpture Madonna and Child is here, behind plate glass and up high on an altar, a lovely white marble piece and the only one of his works to have left Italy within his lifetime. History says it was purchased by wealthy Belgian merchants and still resides there today, though in 1944 German soldiers smuggled it to Germany enveloped in mattresses in a Red Cross truck. (It was later found and returned.) I was happy to take Tim’s last four euros to see it—we were short of cash and it was one of the last stops of the weekend. The Madonna looked pensive, a rather different expression than I’ve ever seen on statues or portraits of her.

Tim was happy to wait just inside the church while I roamed; there are effigies of Charles the Bold and his daughter in the choir space, and a glass floor that looks down to crypts below, some with decorative art and writing within them.

We also wandered into at least two other churches, one St Jacob, the other St Magdaleine and Catherine, and what is striking about all of them is the ornate carvings inside, particularly the pulpit, where the intricate details catch your eye. Alas we did not venture into one of the more famous churches, The Basilica of the Holy Blood, though we wandered outside of it several times–it is a stone’s throw from the hotel, and in fact our landmark for finding the hotel in the first place.  The church was built in the early 12th century, and a relic of the blood of Christ, said to have been collected by Joseph of Arimathea who washed the body after it was taken from the cross, is here.

Bruges is a wonderful city to walk—the cobbled streets do wear on your legs after a while, but what glorious sites to behold down the narrow streets that make the aches well worth it. There were many a lace and chocolate shop, none of which we ventured into, but we did do plenty of window shopping. We stopped in a bookshop to buy postcards, and wandered in and out of a few shops looking for cheese—I was actually quite surprised there weren’t more of those. The main thoroughfares were filled with tourists—and why not, the weather was really quite perfect with blue, sunny skies and warm, comfortable temperatures throughout the day. We peered into shops with furniture and lovely kitchen goods, and even went to a supermarket so I could buy some chocolate-covered waffles for the office and Tim bought some coffee for home. My valued purchase, a gift from Tim, was from an artisan potter in the market who had lovely vases, pitchers, ash trays (!) and such on display, and I found a lovely small blue pitcher to bring back to Cowes. I had to smile as I unwrapped it from its newspaper cradle and looked at the print—all in Dutch—the sports and property sections that I may hold on to for a little bit and take a closer look at.

Dinner turned out to be a delight after a minor disappointment—Leah’s suggestions for venues for dinner were fully booked, and I wasn’t amenable to walking up and down the streets to find something else—when I’m hungry and irritable it’s not pretty. We decided to try the hotel’s restaurant, listed as a Bib Gourmand (Michelin inspectors’ favourite establishments). The restaurant is in the lower ground floor, in age-old cellars at the water‘s edge with a view of the Groene Rei canal. It was decorated to a contemporary standard, romantically lit, and the set menu had interesting choices—one was called The Three Naughties, another The Four Pleasures. We both went with the former, choosing different mains of salmon and chicken, and Tim found a lovely red Bordeaux on the wine list to start the evening. What a treat—the service was lovely, the food quite good, and we shared the vices of crème brulee and chocolate tart. It was a very short walk back to our room overlooking the canal, but we decided to venture out and have a walk, perhaps find a coffee. In the end we found ourselves at the hotel lounge sipping an Oban whisky and chatting with the host, who either liked us immensely or was completely forgetful and didn’t charge us for our very generous pours!

Unfortunately Bruges' most famous landmark, the belfry known in the movie In Bruges from where Colin Ferrell leaps, was surrounded by white tents and metal gates—there was a triathlon taking place, and the centre was where the runners would come through on the last leg of their event. You can of course still look up and see the tower; there are 48 bells in the belfry and they have a full-time carillonneur in the city. There are so many churches that it’s hard to know where the sound of the bells is coming from on Sunday morning! We did have breakfast al fresco with a view of the belfry—the one time I would allow us to dine in a touristy square with hundreds of tables where the food was bound to be edible but nothing special—hey, it’s bacon and eggs and beans on toast, after all. We were both disappointed that there were no croissants; the bread provided in lieu could have been Hovis or Wonder. The coffee, I must say, was delicious, and a second cup kept us there a bit longer to watch the city wake up, which it did in very short order.

We did find a lovely place off the beaten track for lunch on our second day while walking around the city—another al fresco dining experience with a wonderful hostess who did her best to explain in English the specials of the day. I decided on the simple white fish with frieten, and Tim went for the three-course special of the day, which included two fish courses and fruit. The first course was a bit of a surprise—a whole, small fish, and not cooked but pickled, much like a herring. We both tried it. We both left about half of it on the plate. It was served cold, with white onion, and while it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t delightful to my palate, perhaps a bit too strongly flavoured. My white fish, which looked very much like skate, was delicious and perfectly cooked, served with a delicate homemade tartar sauce, and the “French fries” as the hostess called them were a nice treat. The half carafe of rose suited our meals and our minds, perfectly—it was a wonderful meal and a glorious way to idle away a couple of hours in Bruges.

Oh, and, why not Belgian moules frites? Not the right month!

So, can one do Bruges in 36 hours and thoroughly enjoy it? Ja. Its proximity to London makes it that much more appealing—a 90-minute drive to Dover, 40 minutes in the Eurotunnel, and then another 75 minutes on the other side from Calais to Bruges went by quickly, helped along by pretty countryside, a bit of conversation, and The Telegraph.

We had a quiet drive back to London, I suspect both of us reminiscing about the weekend’s walks and talks and food and sights and sounds. I didn’t even mind the traffic once we found ourselves back in North London. Of course if I had one of these, known as a Twizzy, I might zip through the traffic!