We made our way from Russell Square to St. Pancras by tube – of course. The train station was, well, OK. The only bookshop was closed, which was a drama for Matt as he didn't have a book. We had no problems with checking in, but had a nasty sinking feeling that we were going to be the youngest people on our tour. Oh well.
The Eurostar is wonderful. It was very comfortable, and sooooooo fast! On the train our suspicions were confirmed. We're on a tour full of elderly travellers. Well, mostly elderly – there were a few 40 and early 50-year olds. So, of course, things took a while – especially getting on and off the train and in and out of coaches. And our tour guide was of the 'jolly hockey' ilk. Hmmm. Never mind, we got to Lille, transferred to a coach, and finally got to Bruges – about an hour away.
This is apparently a symbol of Bruges. Hmmm....
Our hotel was right near the centre of the old part of Bruges, and we were dropped off right outside – and had to get off quickly as coaches aren't allowed to park for long in the town (there's a coach park outside the main canal). We drove past the Post Office Square, and Kathy nearly cracked her chin on the windowsill of the coach as her jaw dropped. It was beautiful!
The post office building, Bruges
When we got to the hotel, though, so we were taken out on a walking tour. Bruges has lots of cobbled streets
and incredible old buildings – it's amazing how well preserved it is. The good thing about the walking tour (taken at a very, very slow pace) was finding a few places to go back to. And we did, after checking in.
The first place we went to was a bar called Cambrinus. It had over 400 beers available! The beer menu came out in a wood-bound book. We just didn't know where to start, so we just picked a page at random, then picked brews at random on those pages. We had a a St Bernardus Tripel to start with, with our yummy cheese platter and a mixed meat platter. Then we had a Tongerlo Blond (Kathy) and a Tripel (Matt). After another wander we had a Straffe hendrick Tripel, a t'Smisje Dubbel, a Lindemans Kriek and a Frambois. Tip for readers: Lindemans is not pronounced like the Aussie winemaker – it's Lyndamans or Lynd'man. Absolutely delicious, all of it.
Back to Bruges. It's very, very pretty (our tour guide said that the inhabitants of the old town often complain that they live in a kind of 'disney land'). It's amazing to think that the buildings in most of the of the old town have remained reasonably unchanged for centuries on the outside. In the central square many of the buildings look as though they were building in the 16th or 17th centuries.
Although it sounds from the paragraph above that we spent much of the day in pubs, we actually spent a lot of time just wandering around, getting lost, and listening to the carillion. Matt didn't believe Kathy when she said “that's playing Danny Boy!”, but it was – it also played Greensleeves and Ode to Joy.
On Monday we were up early-ish for breakfast and a quick wander around on our own. It was good getting out and just wandering. Many people were using bicycles for the commute to work or school. We walked around part of the outside of the old part of the town on a walking and cycling track, which was beautiful.
It was green, lots of trees and parkland, and lots of ducks. We saw a duck with 10 ducklings. Yes, that's right – 10. Lots of lovely buildings to look at,
Matt in Bruges
Building over a laneway, Bruges
and a swivel bridge over a canal. It was raining a bit, bit it was good to get out and about and have a wander around.
We found a plaza and decided to sit and have a coffee, and got seriously ripped off. 2 coffees cost €5.40 each! We were supposed to go on a brewery tour, but missed seeing the note about how to get to the meeting point until after the meeting time. Ah well. So, we went to have lunch. We wanted mussels, so found a place slightly off the beaten track, and it was really, really odd. The owner was a bit strange. The lighting was too low (and on a sunny day), and Matt had a really odd tasting mussel (which he spat out) – which of course put him on edge for the rest of his meal. They even stuffed up the frites, as they had been cooked in too old fat. Hopefully that is the worst meal we have in Bruges.
After lunch we went to find the Church of Notre Dame, but found Saint Saviour's instead. D'oh. But it had the most amazing Byzantine/early Medieval frescoes. It was amazing to learn that some of them weren't re-discovered until the 1990's. The Church had sarcophagi which were painted on the inside, preserving the works really well. There was a Cistercian monastery next door, which would explain the sarcophagus. There were even frescoes on the the arched ceilings. The ceiling roses were beautiful. There was a lot of art on display in the church, some of which was part of an exhibit, some of which belongs to the church.
Stained glass window in Saint Saviour's
Interior of the church
We then managed, using a pretty crappy map, found our way to Notre Dame, via the toilets attached to an old former hospital right over the road. The main reason we wanted to go to Notre Dame is that it has a Madonna and Child by Michangelo. If the sculpture hadn't been illuminated you would have been able to tell who the sculptor was. The marble glowed, and the carving was absolutely amazing. Apparently it's the only one outside Italy. It was really beautiful. The church was filled with paintings again, but it was so beautiful. We were glad we went.
The outside of Notre Dame
After that, Kathy bought some very yummy chocolates (which we ate)
Some chocolates we didn't buy!
More chocolate art
and some post cards for our families in Australia and New Zealand, then we did some more wandering around getting lost. We came across a flock of swans on a canal. One of the swans was a bit, um, frustrated – he kept chasing and trying to mate other swans!
We walked around over a bridge and saw one swan on a nest full of eggs, which we'd never seen before. As we wandered on we found a brewery – oddly enough the one we were supposed to have a tour of earlier in the day! The brewers is called the Halve Mann. This is the only brewery still in Bruges, so is a last part of history in Bruges. Naturally, we had to go in and have a sit and a couple of brews. We sat in a lovely sunny courtyard, listening to horse-drawn carriages going past outside. It was quite idyllic.
We did more wandering after that, gazing in awe at the buildings, and trying not to bump in to all the other tourists. Kathy bought some real lace (complete with certificate of authenticity), before we back tracked to a bar we saw earlier in the day. There were a pair of German tourists who suddenly took our their camera and took a photo of the label on their beer. Turns out that it was an export label which came with the obligatory Surgeon-General's warning about the abuse of alcohol. They laughed very hard, and found it quite funny. It was a sad reflection on the cultural difference between mainland Europe, the UK and the US.
Yummy beers we had were:
- Coukelaerschen Doedel,
- Bink Blond (apparently bind means stud),
- Oerbier,
- Gouden Carolus Classic
- De Dolle Brouwers Oerbier Special Reserva. This one was brewed in 2006 and is 13%. OMG.
Dinner was at a restaurant called The Hobbit.
We couldn't resist. It was a grill restaurant. Kathy had lamb, and Matt had pork ribs – as many plates as you could eat! It was pretty yummy.
On Tuesday we joined the rest of the group on a canal boat trip at the start of the day. The boatman who took us around the route had been a boatman doing this sort of work for 35 years, and had a very odd, philosophical outlook on life. It was an interesting trip. It was quite different looking at the buildings from the water as it gave us a different perspective.
View along a canal from the boat
Canal in Bruges
Notre Dame cathedral, again, but from the water
The houses were just as beautiful from the water as they are from the road
Sculpture, which could only be seen from the water
Kathy on the cruise
It was certainly obvious which were houses built by wealthy inhabitants.
After that we had our coach trip to Ypres. The first stop was Tyne Cot cemetery in Pachendale. It was very emotional. There was just row upon row of headstones,
and many names of those who couldn't fit at the Menin Gate. The land was so flat and just gently undulating, it was quite eerie. Kathy left her ANZAC Day poppy at the memorial for the missing NZ soldiers. We found there was a bit grouping of Australian soldiers.
C.S. Jeffries, VC
It was both beautiful and sad at the same time. It's beautifully maintained, and is a very peaceful. The Commonwealth War Grave Commission does a fantastic job. We were allowed only 30 minutes, but we could have spent hours there just wandering around.
Next stop was Hill 62, so named because it is 62 feet above sea level. There is a museum there, which is a really odd little place, and is very definitely an eccentrics passion. The museum land has been left as it was on 11 November 1918, complete with trenches
and shell craters.
There is a 'museum' there, but most of it is various bits and pieces randomly lumped together. Bit odd, really, but the trenches were pretty amazing. It had been raining recently, and the mud was green-ish and slimey. We both got a different perspective on some of the stuff we've both read about trench warfare after seeing that. All pretty horrible, really. Kathy heard a cuckoo in the distance, and it found it very poignant.
Last stop was Ypres. It's incredible.
It's hard to believe that the town was flattened during WWI, then rebuilt at the insistence of the locals. It's just an amazing job.
After a yummy lunch of a yummy stew we went to the 'In Flanders Field' museum, which is located in the old Cloth Hall. It's a really great museum, a good mix of stories from locals and soldiers on both sides.
Yes, that shell is nearly as long as Kathy is tall
There is a sound effect of a shell crashing in to the building, which scared the beejezers out of us – it really did sound as though there was something crashing through the ceiling. There were old gas masks (which must have been really horrific to wear), photographs, old uniforms and armaments. It was really a good visit. If you look at the outside of the building you can see some of the damage, though, but it looks old. Amazing. On the outside of the building is a plaque commemorating the Polish troops who liberated Ypres in WW2.
When the Cloth Hall was still a cloth hall, it was once riddled with rats, so the crafty Flemish let cats loose in the Hall. But the cats because so numerous that they became a pest, too. So they got rid of them by tossing them off the top of the bell tower by the workers. Not our idea of the way to get rid of a pest, but these were different times. The act of tossing the cats is still commemorated every year – except they use toy cats now.
After the Museum, we went to the Menin Gate.
Oh my goodness. So many names.
The lists just went on, and on.
We both cried. The list of Australian names just didn't seem to stop. The wreaths from ANZAC day were still there, and still looked really fresh.
It was good to see something living amongst the memorial, because it actually became quite oppressive and we just couldn't take it any more and had to leave. We really do live on a different planet downunder. You can read all the facts, read accounts, but it's not until you're there that it really hits you just what a horrible thing took place.
On our way to and from Ypres our tour guide started to grate on our nerves. She was definitely preaching to the choir on the bus. She wasn't quite telling a disneyland version of what happened, but certainly an English version of what went on. Lots of bad boy stories about the Australian troops, and glossing over the British involvement in wars overseas in the 21st century.
That evening we did our own thing (again) and found a nice restaurant for a meal. After the events of the day we decided we needed it. Kathy had a lovely lamb stew with new season asparagus (green and white), and Matt had pigs cheeks. We also had our last beers in Belgium. Sigh! We finished the day back at the hotel, served by a waiter who looked like Farouk, from The Castle. There were 2 for 1 drinks – so we had Remy Martin and Calvados. As you do.
Wednesday was our last day in Belgium. We started the day with a trip to a choclatier, who pushed very hard to have people buy their chocolates. So we didn't. But they did give us an interesting talk on how the filled chocolates are made. On our way back to the hotel we bough chocolates from elsewhere, and Matt took a photo of some which were designed to appeal to men, rather than women.
Cheeky....
For some reason. So it was then back to Lille to catch the Eurostar, and another instance of just how monolingual Australians are when the French customs agent treated us like scum, because we could only say 'bonjour'. At least we tried.
We had a fantastic time in Belgium. We saw some beautiful buildings, ate some good food, and drank some good beers.
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