Brugge

22/6

A morning smile is inevitable when we wake fully rested, in the company of our favourite people, anticipating a delicious breakfast and a new adventure on our doorstep!

This time on foot and with raincoat, we set off for the walled & moated compact 11th century medieval town of Brugge - a favourite of the G’s pre-kids & a tourist mecca. 

New for us are many traveling young people in year-end excursion based school groups as well as the newly independent late teen especially from America.  Wil’s theory is that it is all about the chocolate, chips & beer!  Ridiculously pretty canals, mossy walls & bridges and old brick narrow buildings with gables all decorated with coloured or gold piping, like on a cake, are almost common place in the Lowlands but for me, the town’s uniqueness is in the rich historical flavour imparted by the clusters of Begijnhoven and Godshuizen.  

The former are UNESCO listed ‘peace cities’ where widowed, single or religious women live/lived taking vows of poverty - lay sisters.  Originally, widowed women gathered together after their husbands were killed in crusades.  Benedictine nun’s joined them.  The houses are typically brick (as there were no stones to build with here & wood was a fire hazard), about 3 stories high, narrow and whitewashed with modest gables. They encircle large treed ovals with a chapel at one end and themselves are walled.  The Godshuizen were built by the large number of wealthy textile merchant inhabitants of this prosperous city for the less privileged.  

Exquisite soaring spires and towers topped with all the usual gold bits (cocks, mermaids, crosses, ships, horses…) are particularly plentiful presiding over beautiful central markets as well as offering ‘commas’ at the turn of every cobblestoned-bend.  And kitsch as they are, beautiful nags pull tourists around in carriages, their clopping hooves in rhythm with the chiming (up to 47 bells) of the carillons.

The wind, rain, & sun seem to scroll every 5 minutes.  Just bought this morning E5 brollies already buggared after a powerful gust of wind.  In a downpour, Wil seizes on a fritewinkel (chip shop) and we huddle over a mound of (quite ordinary really) fries ‘til the sun comes out again.

In a ‘flooding’ or desensitization session for Jen, we cram as much crap as we can into a few hours and head for Choco-Story.  Yes, there’s a demonstration and tasting of their world famous pralines at the end BUT there’s also a terrific 3 story museum on the story of the cocoa bean & industry.

Homework piece.

We saunter through more tree-lined parks & past ancient romantic canals toward Ed to unwind after another exhausting day as tourists!? Fruit for dinner!

Back at Ed the kids do a quick bit of writing, the adults blog, have a coffee and a read, then the kids venture out to make movies and search for the boat lady’s dog which is hell-bent on killing a rabbit.

After a light dinner of fruit and yoghurt with the evening looking clear blue sky we jump on the bikes to circumnavigate the egg of Brugge.  A stiff cooling breeze at our backs we find the bike path, watch some dumb guy talking on his mobile riding his bike cross a road without looking, get T boned by a car, thrown to the ground, the driver mad by the time he gets out to help the guy because by now the idiot’s standing up still carrying on the phone conversation!  The driver is looking at the dents in the front of the car, we ride by and soon are passed by the same jerk on his bike……...on his phone still! 

Onwards around this immeasurably beautiful/quaint city’s moat/canal and we come to the St Anne Quarter where there’s a line of windmills standing atop dike like hills, 

then as we cross the top of the “egg” we are back on the cobble stones, 

cause of Kel's "Brugge Bottom"

fording pretty little bridges over labyrinths of canals and alleys, dawdled our way a bit extra-egg but then meandered back to the square over the central station with some fantastic sculptures:

The  back into the centre which we found at 2000hrs to be a lot less crowded than earlier - spirits soaring with what we are so fortunate to be taking in.

Brugge Belfry

The wind (and TomTom in my pocket a la Tom Thumb) took us home to Eddie for a wipe-wash and a read and a very contented zizz.  Left the bikes out anticipating a morning raid on egg central for a coffee/hot choc.

23/6

Gorgeous sunny (always windy) morning - in no rush. The only sounds are tinkling boat mast moored on the canal outside our ‘upstairs’ bedroom window. Poor Jeff’s rib is sufficiently irritating to prohibit a pre-breakfast run so I head off alone. The early morning gives a very different glimpse of the cosy town cocooned by circumferential tall rustling poplars & water before us tourists swell the place to bursting and strip it’s true quiet character.  A few enticing wee attic windows are pushed open a fraction letting puffs of wind billow out their lace curtains.  It’s so pretty, ancient and important that it seems incredible and even strange that ordinary people with real lives occupy these heritage homes.  Sometimes I miss the routine, easy nooks of home with my slippers & dressing gown and kitchen.  I amuse at how one of the things I anticipate returning to on these long trips is cooking!  If I peer through homely windows on my runs and see folk mooching about, coffee mug in hand, stabs of intense envy pierce me right in the middle. Anyway, the run is incredible with such charming paths and scenery.  I return to my indescribably precious family who greet with with rumpled, pink cheeks and doey morning eyes.  I couldn’t be luckier.

After our delicious breakfast & coffee and an enjoyable session of maths, we cycle to the markets picking up wurst, dried fruit & buckles for the camera bag.  Like a magnet, the town centre pulls us back in for a last look and a hot Belgian chocolate before we climb in our magical bus for yet another adventure.  The cows are fatter & bigger, the roads are as bad as QLD outback tracks, there are no criss-crossing waterways/canals/ditches & there’s an amazing fine yellow-green grassy crop with small purple flower atop that is so fluorescent in colour that it almost hurts to look at it.  Must find out what it is.