No run for me this morning. I was feeling the effects of the previous two days, especially in my left calf. We ate breakfast and then got ready to go to Bruges. Weather looked spotty, so we went prepared for rain. Walked to a tram stop, then took the tram (paying with Google Pay) to St Peter station. I bought the train tickets with no hitches, and we walked quickly to catch the next train to Bruges. Turns out it was a local, so the trip took longer than expected. Still, no worries, we weren't on a schedule. We arrived at the Bruge central train station, which is a 15-20 minute walk from the center of the historical district. The streets were narrow, with cobblestones. When we got to the Markt Square, it was a letdown. There were some nice buildings around the square, but it was really commercialized and there were amusement park rides in the square itself. Ann asked a guy where to find the Wednesday market and got directions to another nearby square. We walked there, and it wasn't much better aesthetically. Lots of food trucks and vendors selling fruits and vegetables, cheeses, meat, etc., with beautiful buildings surrounding the square. We got food from the vendors, I had Vietnamese noodles and she had chicken on a stick. Then we found a bench and ate our lunch. I ended up saving some of the noodles to have in our soup for dinner later. After eating, we plotted out things we wanted to see. They included sights in the two squares we had already visited. As we walked back towards them, it started to rain, not too hard but noticeable and steady. We went into a church, the Basilica of the Holy Blood, that had an interesting interior design, along with a holy relic of a piece of cloth purporting to have some of Jesus' blood on it. Ann paid to go into a room where they had some gold items, and I watched the line of people waiting to see the relic. Eventually I got in line and saw it as well. It was, as expected, underwhelming, that is of course unless it really was the blood of Jesus. Ann skipped this one. It was still raining, maybe a little harder, when we left the church. We walked over to a popular photo spot by the river running through the city, then Ann suggested we find a place inside to have a drink. I wasn't up for paying outrageous amounts for a cup of hot chocolate, so we retraced our steps back to a place called the Beer Museum that I had seen earlier. We both got 4-beer samplers, Ann's was paired with chocolates. The beers were all actually pretty good, although two of Ann's were cherry-based and not beers at all. While we were inside, the weather cleared up a little, so we headed back to the river to take a 30-minute boat tour. It was decent entertainment. Here are my notes from the tour.
Beer museum tasting was fun, Rodenbach Classic was a brown ale with lots of flavor. IPA was similar to West Coast types. Ann had a couple of cherry-flavored drinks.
Pascal was our boat tour guide.
First bridge wa passed under was from 14th century. St Anna church spire in baroque style, from 17th century. There are about 350 Madonnas on buildings in Bruges, on almost every street. We passed through the medieval harbor of city, near the church was a boat landing in old times.
The bear is the mascot of the city.
Pigeon towers on one of the buildings we passed by, for sending messages. There's a church that has a Madonna and Child statue by Michelangelo, one of the few of his stone carvings not in Italy.
St John's hospital building is from the 12th century.
The Bruges Belfry tower located by the Bruges Museum, is 83 m high, 366 steps. The Belfort consists of the belfry and the accompanying carillon. While we were there, I heard it playing If I Were a Rich Man and Over the Rainbow.
Guillotine bridge is lowest in city, we had to duck down as we passed under it.
Lake of Love with lots of swans and a narrow channel nearby.
St Xavier cathedral is the oldest in the city.
St Boniface bridge, aka the Kissing Bridge.
After the boat tour, we both decided we had seen what we wanted to see, so we started our walk back to the train station. Ann stopped at the Beer Museum to go to the bathroom, and I saw that the square with the Wednesday market had been completely cleared of hawkers, pretty impressive. So I took a couple of additional pics. The weather was windy, but we didn't have much rain to deal with. This time, we got on an intercity train, which only had one stop before Ghent. Much faster. I had a little trouble finding the tram stop after we got off the train, but I found it and we got back to the flat with no issues. Soup for dinner and a quiet evening after another fairly long day doing the tourist thing.
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