Brugge, or Bruges

Brugge is very special. It’s about the most charming city in this part of Europe, crossed and recrossed by canals and streets that are lined with magnificent buildings.

As we walked toward downtown Brugge, we found hundreds of people in costume and medieval dress, and many horses and sheep waiting for a parade to start. Brugge puts on this pageant every five years, and it tells the history of the town in about 90 scenes depicting various incidents. There were dancers, singers, horses, flocks of sheep, and hundreds of people in costumes. It was very interesting, although we learned more than we needed to know about Brugge’s history.

When we visited another year, we found shops selling Belgium lace, and at one place there was a woman and two young girls weaving the lace. It looks very complicated as they weave with many little wooden bobbins, each with fine thread. They are rotated and intermixed in complex, intricate patterns.

I went to the top of the main tower in the market square. The steps are narrow, so they let a group of people go up and spend some time, and they must come down before others are permitted to go to the top. Traffic control for the narrow steps.

The Cathedral of our Lady is unusual in that there are seven aisles (called naves), a large one in the middle and three smaller on each side. The Cathedral is almost square, rather than rectangle like most. Michelangelo's famous sculpture “Madonna and Child,” is displayed in Brugge’s Cathedral.

When we look at the tourists in the boats taking the tour of Brugge, we think it might be fun to take a boat ride sometime. But we are always so busy just looking here and there, we can’t be bothered spending our time in a boat where all we could do is look up at the buildings. While we walk, we can look up, down, around and inside the buildings.

They have a lot of horse drawn carriages, and unlike most other cities where we have seen horse and carriage, they have a plastic sheet, like a diaper, extending from under the horses tail. It keeps the street of Brugge (and our shoes) clean.

Brugge’s campsite was easy to find the first year, and easier yet in the years to follow. In addition to normal campsite facilities, there were several tennis courts. One year, while traveling with Emmy’s Cousins Hugo and Maria, they slept in a Motel room, we slept in the camper in the Motel parking lot.