buy deltasone prednisone Bicycles parking at the Bruge Train Station
http://thebandchoice.com/WORDPRESS Park by the train station in Bruge
Clearer skies than we have yet to see in Belgium started off our day. We took the Metro to Gare du Midi and bought round-trip tickets to Bruges. We hopped the train, arrived in Bruges in about an hour. First stop was the tourist information center to get a map of the city and recommendations from the agent. Since the Markt was only a 15-minute or so walk from the train station we elected to walk instead of taking the bus. We had mapped out a walking tour of our own to hit the highlights that most interested us.
Horse Cart rides in Bruge
Bruges is a medieval town that has been remarkably well preserved. The pedestrian scale of the town including the streetscape, canals, cobblestones was very welcoming. We walked past St-Salvator Kathedral on our way in, vowing to check it out on our way back to the train station. First stop was the Market (the main square which has held a market since the 10th century). The Belfort, or belltower, anchors one side of the square, rises 272 feet into the blue sky, houses. Centered in the square is a statue of two guildsmen who led the rebellion against the French in 1302, ultimately defining the rights such as the right to free trade in the town’s charter (until the 15th century!) A canal used to permit goods to flow into the square, but it has been filled in a replaced with a building housing the administrative offices of West Flanders. On another side of the square is a the Huis Bouchotte – its façade features a compass, attached to a weathervane, which informed merchants the direction of winds for incoming ships.
Compass in the tower
City Theater
We left the square on Vlamingstraat and walked past the town’s neo-classical municipal theater dating to 1868 (one year older than our house in Richmond). We passed a lodge for traders from Genoa that dated to 1399. Nearby we found Huis Ter Beurze where merchants and bankers exchanged credit notes as early as the 13th century. Rumor has it that it was the first stock exchange and is the origin of the French word for stock exchange Bourse.
Genoa Lodge
Stock Exchange – Bruge
Customs House – Bruge
On Academiestraat we found the Burghers’ Lodge, a gathering place for the upper class. It has a tower that was rebuilt in 1775. On the other side of the street is the Old Customs House where customs were assessed. The old weighbridge has been replaced by a city square, complete with a statue of Jan van Eyck, Bruges’ famous artist. The canal now stops here and we walked along it, taking a little detour to check out a baroque church built for the Jesuits in the 17th century. Retracing our steps back to the canal,  we crossed over the canal to Blekersstraat, where we found Bruges’ reputedly oldest tavern, the Café Vlissinghe, dating to 1515.
Janvan ecyk
We continued down Blekkersstraat to the Jerusalemkerk and then on to the Folk Museum, fearing it may close for lunch. The museum is in a series of low almshouses and houses artifacts of Flemish life. Each house/room features a different aspect: a classroom, shoemaker’s shop, clog maker’s shop, grocery, cooper’s trade, pipe and tobacco artifacts, a tavern the Black Cat, a Flemish living room and kitchen, confectioner’s shop, chocolate molds, apothecary, hat shop, tailor, and signboards. The old tools, washing machine, sinks, cabinetry in the apothecary shop held our interest for some time. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed.
We headed over to the windmills which sit where the old city walls stood. The city wall was further protected by a moat which is still in existence (walls taken down in 19th century). At one point there were 20 windmills only 3 are left, and one is original to Bruges, even though it was restored in 1770. Farther on we found Kruispoort, a gate from 1402, that guarded the eastern approach to the town. It is now all that is left of the city walls.
On our way back to the Markt to find a place for lunch, we passed through the Burg. The town hall is here, built of sandstone with a façade dating to 1375 it has a Gothic Hall noted for its 1385 vaulted ceiling. The Provost’s House next door was built in Baroque-style of grey stone in the 17th century.
We lunched on traditional Flemish fare at a restaurant in the Markt, enjoying t blue skies and the sun. Mike had filet of Oostendt herring and rabbit in the Flemish style. I had Flemish ham and melon with Flemish beef stem. Our beers came in glass containers set in a wooden holder – quite a different experience.
After lunch we headed back to the Burg to walk through Blind Donkey Alley, a narrow arched alley, to get to the fishmarket. The open air fishmarket is usually busy early in the morning but by afternoon was deserted. We climbed aboard one of the canal tour boats and took a ½ hour tour of the city by water, retracing many of t places we had walked earlier, but with a different view. It was kind-of Disney-ish but it was fun.
After our tour we walked along the canal on Rozenhoedkaai and Diver to the Church of Our Lady. Its spire was under renovation and masked by scaffolding and construction tarps. The main entrance was blocked.  We wondered if the restoration will take as long as the original construction (200 years). Michelangelo’s sculpture Madonna and Child from 1504 is here.
On our way back to the train station, we stopped in to visit St Salvator Kathedraal to check out the eight Brussels’ tapestries representing the Life of Christ. It, too, I sin the midst of renovation. The exterior has been completed, the interior is scheduled to start in 2010. However, most of the artwork and statues were covered in preparation for the work to come.
We caught the train for a very pleasant ride through the countryside back to Brussels. Skies were clear in Brussels, too – so we sat outside at the Hotel Metropole and enjoyed a glass of wine. We revisited the Grand Place at night – just to see it without rain and, then headed back to the hotel to pack for our return to Paris to meet Glenn and Kimberly.
