The Venice of Belgium

Today Ashley, Alex, and I set out to Bruges, a town near the coast of the North Sea, with Larry (come on, you can't really think the fly won yesterday!). It was about an hour's drive on the E40 highway through Flanders, the flat, green, farm-filled, Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. There were lots of cows, horses, and sheep in the fields to distract Alex. We found our way to the city center and parked in the garage, which had the same wackadoodle system for annotating the floors: turtle, carrot, rabbit, fish, sea horse. Seriously, I have to make a note to look this up at some point.

We walked through Bruges (in Flemish: Brugge) for a while; once again, it was an uncharacteristically beautiful day weather-wise. Bruges is a beautiful old town with cobblestone streets and lots of 17th-century buildings. It is considered the Venice of Belgium because it is full of canals and bridges. There are horses pulling carriages in the streets and boats touring the canals. I am sure it sounds like it is great, and in fact, it is, but lots of other people thought so too. The (of course) narrow sidewalks were full of tourists, but Ashley and Larry said that it was much better today than it would have been in August, when you can't even move (bear in mind that the streets are filled with crazy drivers, motorcyclists, and people on bikes). Bruges is full of cafes, so we were smelling frites left and right, and we decided we had to have some. Larry maneuvered us through the town to Marieke van Brugghe, a cafe near a big church. The sun was shining, so we sat outside. It occurred to me yesterday that of all the meals I've eaten in restaurants in Europe, I have only sat inside one time. The weather has been spectacular. Anyway, we ordered croquettes and salad and "supplementary frites" (this is what the menu calls them!) and enjoyed the weather.

we ordered croquettes and salad and "supplementary frites" and enjoyed the weather.

After lunch. we went over to the canal and got tickets to go on one of the little boats for a tour of Bruges. We crowded onto a boat with about 25 other tourists, and the guide gave information in Flemish, French, German, and English. We noticed later that some boats go really quickly, but ours was slow...must be because those guides don't speak 4 languages! The buildings are super old here, as I said, and the foundations are set right in the canals. There are a lot of bridges that we went under, and there were stalactites hanging from their roofs, one of which dripped on me. I wonder how old that water was? The ride lasted about 30 minutes, and we got a good look at a lot of beautiful churches and houses, the latter of which people still live in, with the requisite flower boxes decorating them. Several houses had patios with doors that opened right into the canal for collecting deliveries from boats. We also saw the smallest Gothic window in Bruges -- an adorable 1-foot-tall one. During the tour, I noticed that the control panel on the boat had signs by the switches in English marked "Torpedo," "Missile," and "Armed." Hahaha! Already I see that people in Flanders are more fun than the people in Brussels.

We got off the boat and visited the courtyard of a church, which Alex said was a "castle" (I should say that any fancy, tall, ornate building on the trip is not just a castle, but "Alex's castle"). Fortunately, she had her "castle hat" (tiara) so we were able to get in. We took photos and waved to some people passing in one of the canal boats. The weather was still fabulous, which was a huge surprise. We stopped to get ice cream cones...it took all three of us adults to help Alex eat hers without losing most of us and/or making a huge mess. It really does take a village. Next we visited the Church of the Holy Blood, which is incredibly ornately decorated. Every square inch was covered with paintings, murals, or stained glass. The church had a rule, though, that no photography was allowed. This rule was enforced by a scary Flemish lady who grabbed you if you tried to take a picture. There was only one small sign indicating this rule, so she got to do a lot of grabbing. There was an option to pay money to take Communion, which we bypassed in favor of sitting quietly and taking it all in.

When we left the church, the sky had clouded up, and we were getting tired, so we headed back to the car through the crowded sidewalks. There are a ton of shops in Bruges selling everything: clothes, shoes, lace, souvenirs, and obscenely shaped chocolates, which were displayed right in the windows. Hello! We found the garage, found our car, and headed for home just as the rain started. Victory! On the way home, we saw cars from Belgium, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Liechtenstein, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, Poland, and Greece. Wow! We also saw signs for a town called Asse, which Larry and I found supremely funny on the way to Bruges this morning. Ashley thought we were sooooo immature, but come on! Asse! On the way home, Larry said we were approaching Asse from the back side. HAHAHA! Come on! You are never too old to laugh at inadvertent swear words, I say.

When we got home after a minor miscalculation in the King Leopold II tunnel in Brussels, we relaxed for a bit before heading out to dinner at a Greek restaurant in the neighborhood. The owner made a huge fuss over us (Larry and Allison go there often), and the food was really good. We had mezza to start, and then we each had a huge entree, so we were totally stuffed by the end. There was a guy playing Greek songs on a guitar and singing along, and the owner also sang sometimes, and a random woman eating at the restaurant also sang. It was a great time. The interesting thing is that there is a tree growing right up through the middle of the restaurant, through the roof. Larry told a story about a time that it rained while they were there and the owner came over to their table and stood with an umbrella over them to keep them dry. After we ate, we went home and got ready for bed. Today was a long day, and tomorrow we are off to another interesting city: Ghent!