We absolutely LOVED Bruges! In fact, I look back on these pictures and I think I love it even more!
We woke up the morning after our Christmas adventures in Amsterdam and drove down to Bruges, passing some Dutch windmills on the way.
Hey! Welcome to Belgium!
Of course, we got there and got checked in before we headed out to the old town area AAAAAND it was raining. We weren't staying in the city - as I mentioned previously about the Netherlands, these countries are not cheap. So we stayed south of the city and had to drive in and park. Thankfully we brought our umbrellas (in Europe, you don't leave home without them!)
Market Square was all lit up for Christmas with it's beautiful gabled roofs.
If you're as tall as a regular sized Christmas tree, you have to be used for scale when it comes to REALLY tall Christmas trees.
We grabbed a little dinner and then went back to the hotel for drinks after the kids went to bed. Neither Todd or I love Belgian beers (I know, that seems weird.) But you have to have one or two when you're here!
We stayed at the Green Park Hotel and it had this little canal passing it, which we checked out the following morning.
Going into the city the next morning, we had to take a picture of our parking spot - which I'm pretty sure was the last spot in all of Bruges.
We parked at Het Zand and passed this little beauty as we walked into the city. Believe it or not, this is a fast food joint! I love the gables!
Baileys walking into Bruges. Three out of four Baileys have no idea a photo is being taken.
Thankfully we didn't have any rain on our full day in Bruges.
We walked back to the Markt which was bustling with post holiday shoppers and visitors.
The old Dutch word, "brugga" - which means "bridge" is where the name Bruges came from. The city was pretty much spared during both World Wars I and II - which is pretty impressive, given it's location.
Our first real stop was The Beer Wall. This great wall of beer and a great bar are set in the home of a 15th century mayor. I officially vote for this guy as the Mayor of Beer!
Man, I love Europe. This guy is directing us to the bathrooms.
It's a sad day when your 12-year-old wants to take pictures of beer.
He was a wise man who invented beer - Plato. (FYI: Plato never said this!)
You MUST take the time to read some of the labels. They're hilarious!
The cafe is called 2Be and of course, we had to stop and get a drink.
In addition to about a dozen or so beers on tap, they also had snacks. Cheese and sausage, anyone?
Grrrrrr.
If you get to 2Be, you definitely have to go out to their terrace and enjoy your beer outside, even if the weather is a bit chilly. The views can't be beat!
Ok that's a little better. Still working on teaching Grant how to smile.
Across the canal from 2Be's terrace is the stop where most of the boat tours originate. These boat tours are also a MUST when in Bruges. I imagine on a pretty late spring day, this is awesome!
My boys (Grant! That is not how you smile!) enjoying drinks on the 2Be terrace.
This was a super cute statue right outside of the 2Be terrace. Here, a girl is hopping over her friend to take a quick dip in the Dijver Canal.
She always wanted a beer key chain, but we always said no. Now she'll probably be asking for a beer motorcycle! I'm also not sure what Grant is doing?
We wanted to take a boat ride, so we walked across Wollestraat to Rozenhoedkaai to get in line for a cruise.
The flowers were strangely blooming as we watched the boats go by, past the spot where we had just had beers - the 2Be bar terrace.
I wasn't sure which picture to include... the one before this, with the boat, or this one?
But I knew I had to include a nice family selfie at one of the most photographed spots in Bruges. I promise. We will teach Grant how to smile one day.
There was a line to wait for the boats, but they come and go with some regularity. Not sure how it is in the summer, but they were pretty frequent in late December.
Natalie: LOOK! These flowers match my new FitBit band!
We're getting there, buddy. My babies look cute while waiting for the boat to take us around Bruges.
The Church of Our Lady, Bruges sits above the city, almost in the clouds on a cloudy late December day.
We finally took off on our boat tour of Bruges and we immediately passed this place. Which appears to me to be a "rooftop bar" - only it's on top of a building that appears to be half immersed in the river. I know it didn't, but it looks like it sank there.
This (as they call it) half timber building is actually a boutique hotel called the Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce which had such famous visitors as the King and Queen of Belgium, Olivia Newton John and Winston Churchill. Buildings are no longer built in this style for obvious fire hazard reasons.
Going under one of 54 bridges that are in Bruges, and the best part is the guy next to us checking out his smoochie selfie.
Stepped gables and turquoise, oh my...
The gables and rooflines were very different all around Bruges.
A mix of traditional and more modern buildings along the Steenhouwersdijk canal.
If you're gonna snap a halfway decent picture with the guy in Belgium, you'd better do it without a beer in your hand!
This would have been a funny selfie anyway, and then Grant jumped in at the last second making it super blurry and even funnier. I'm only including it because it just made me laugh.
The backside of the Bourgogne des Flandres brewery has a nice patio, so we decided to pay the brewery a visit later in the day!
Naughty floodplain management but there aren't many other ways you can add on to a building. Cantilevered buildings are a source of much confusion up in New England!
More varied architectural style gables along the canals of Bruges.
Eventually, we made it down to the Sashuis (or Lock House), which is a protected building that was built above the lock (that you can't see because it's sitting on it.) The building is from 1519, although it was restored in the late 1800s. It hasn't functioned as a lock since the 1970s, but the water feature behind that building can take you all the way to Ghent, and beyond.
There were a LOT of swans down by the Minnewater (or Lake of Love.) We didn't actually get to this lake, because it's on the other side of the Sashuis, but there are still plenty of swans in the canals before you get to the lock house.
Wijngaardplein park was the hot spot for various birds that day!
Dang, that's a lotta swans! There are many legends on why Bruges has SO many swans. You'll just have to google that because I never read two stories/legends that were the same.
These flags are on the backside of the Bruges City Hall, which sits next to the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which we went to later. And of course, there's the Belfry of Bruges!
Poortersloge is a building from the late 14th/early 15th century that sits in Jan van Eyck Square. Here (where the tower is), important merchants of Bruges would meet to do trade deals. The statue in front of it, that you can't see in this picture is of Jan van Eyck, the famous painter who died in Bruges in 1441.
We saw this cute statue from the 2Be bar when we were out on the terrace prior to this.
I'm not sure if these fancy lights at the 2Be bar are a permanent fixture or perhaps just there for the holidays, but they are REALLY cool and I bet they look even cooler at night.
Doing a little turn around to park the boat properly!
Of course, tooling around the city in a little boat made us HUNGRY! What better place to stop than the House of Waffles for some Belgian waffles! When in Rome! Who needs a boyfriend when you have waffles????
Grant works very hard on his world maps (mostly of Europe though.) He's very precise and thorough in his paper wars.
Thumbs up for big Belgian waffles with powdered sugar and vanilla ice cream!
Bicycles and big doors and people scurrying by.
Burg Square houses both the Basilica of the Holy Blood AND the Bruges City Hall. Original construction of the City Hall (seen here) was completed in 1421. A fire in the late 1800s pretty much gutted the inside, but it has since been reconstructed. The outside is largely the same, except for the statues on the facade which were destroyed during the French Revolution in the late 1700s.
One of the highlights of Bruges (other than the beer!) is the Basilica of the Holy Blood.
This Basilica (although only named a minor Basilica in 1923) was constructed between 1134-1157. These stained glass pieces sit along the 16th century stairway that leads to the upper chapel.
We didn't go down to the lower St. Basil chapel, which has a Romanesque style that has largely been unchanged since it was built. But the upper Gothic church known as the Chapel of the Holy Blood was done in the Neo-Gothic style in the 1500s.
The upper church's central nave is very colorful and the frescoes on the back wall behind the altar, which you can't really see due to the construction equipment depict the movement of the bloodied cloth to Bruges. One of the stained glass windows is dedicated to Maria Theresa, the Empress of Austria, whose husband was Francis I, the Holy Roman Emperor. Believe it or not, she used to be the sovereign of the "Austrian Netherlands" which even I admit, I didn't know existed before this. (Austria only ruled this area between 1714 and 1797. This area basically belonged to Austria until the French Revolution.)
The ceiling is magnificent.
You can't take pictures of the relic of the Holy Blood - I took this as we entered the small chapel that houses it. You have to stand in line and everyone gets a few moments to say a prayer or whatever. Up the marble stairs is a vial containing a fragment of the garment that Joseph of Arimathea used to wipe the blood from Jesus's face after he was taken down from the cross and put in Joseph's family tomb. Although it was never mentioned in the Bible, it was mentioned in works by Nicodemus. It's said that Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem in the mid 1100s apparently gave the vile to his brother-in-law, the Flemish Count Thierry of Alsace. Another theory says that during the siege of Constantinople in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, it was obtained by the Count of Flanders. Interestingly, I also read that this relic is only shown on Friday's (among some other special days) - and we happened to be there on a Friday!
After visiting the Basilica, we walked through the city on our way to the Bourgogne des Flandres brewery. It was bustling!
Speaking of bustling....
Also spotted on the strange streets of Bruges? Mickey throwing us a double bird while wearing a marijuana scarf. Huh.
Alas, we made it to the Bourgogne des Flandres brewery. Since Belgium is known for its beer, we decided to take a tour of one of their famous breweries.
Bourgogne des Flandres isn't actually the name of the brewery as much as it is the name of a type of beer they brew. It's their most well-known red-brown lambic.
This brewery wishes us a BEERY Christmas and a hoppy New Year!
When we got there, there wasn't a tour leaving for a little bit, so we went to the bar and had one of their famous red-brown lambic ales. Todd looks pretty excited, and he doesn't even LIKE Belgian beer! We had some snickity snacks, too!
This family really knows how to make the faces.
I stand by my previous statement. Look, ma! I'm a beer bottle! Holding another beer bottle!
Awww. Happy holidays, honey.
The Bourgogne des Flandres was originally brewed by the Van Houtryve Family back in the early 1900s, before World War I. Unfortunately, with the rise in popularity of the lager beer, plus the destruction that was caused during World War II, their three family breweries had to close. In the late 1950s, the recipe moved over to the Verhaeghe Brewery. By the 1980s, the recipe was in the hands of Timmermans brewery, where it's remained ever since. Timmermans is the oldest lambic brewery in the world!
The brewery has a fun game for the kids where you have to find this little bird in various places along the tour. If you find them all (and there are a LOT), you get a little prize at the end. The kids are given these kinds of games all the time, but usually there's no prize at the end, so maybe that's what kept them so interested. Normally, they lose interest pretty quickly!
This got me singing the Water Cycle song. If you've got school-age kids, you know this one.
Yeast, malt, hops and water. That's all you really need! Oh! And look on the right! It's our pal!
For kids only. This really was a fantastic brewery tour! The kids never lost interest. Here we found Natalie in a barrel!
Grantie looking cute sitting on some examples of barrels where they might age their beer.
It's time to head into the mashing room! Ahh the aroma!
Upstairs, about halfway through the tour, there is a great little balcony you can step out onto and look down into the courtyard below. That is where we started the tour.
A very interesting door led back into the brewery from the balcony.
Well yeah, duh....
Todd wanted to try today's wort. Wort: Not tasty. But you definitely get the idea of what the flavor of the beer will be.
Hmmm. That logo of the Bourgogne des Flandres looks familiar. Where have I seen that before?
First: The bottles of the Bourgogne des Flandres are really pretty. Second: That stained glass is ALSO so pretty! Third: That's an old school bottle cleaner right there!
Well that's one way to get me downstairs - my face on a bottle!
Ok, I do this from time to time. I have two pictures of the exact same thing and I can't decide which one I want to post, so I just post them both.
I think I need to toot my own horn here for a second. Who scored the highest score in the family on the beer service test? This girl. That's not even a good score ha ha. This room was one of the last ones on the tour but was super fun. There were all kinds of games you could play. We spent a good long time in here!
By the end of the tour, we (ahem, the kids) hadn't quite found all of the birds in the scavenger hunt, but the lady at the front desk took pity on us and gave them prizes anyway. All in all, it was a really fun brewery experience!
As we walked back toward where we parked the car and the spot where we were going to get dinner, we came across a Christmas market in Simon Stevin Square. Simon Stevin (1548-1620) was a famous Belgian mathematician who not only was the first to convert fractions into decimals BUT he also was first to suggest improvements in floodplain management (??) by opening sluices in the Dutch dikes, thereby flooding lands to slow or stop the enemy in times of war. (Grant will tell me this is "cringy" but THAT IS COOL!)
We didn't get a chance to go INTO the St. Salvator's Cathedral, but constructed started on this church in 1250, even though there had been a parish church here since the 9th century. A different cathedral known as Sint-Donaaskathedraal (Saint Donatius Cathedral) was built in 950 and sat in Burg Square for many years - until it was burned down in 1799. Many works of art from Saint Donatius were saved and now reside here.
Le Bon Vivant was our dinner destination, and I took a picture of the outside of it not realizing this guy was doing a photo shoot of his girl in front of the door.
Unfortunately, almost as soon as we sat down, they plopped a bowl of peanuts on the table. NOPE. It was as if the bowl had a disease and we couldn't get the waitress to get it off of the table fast enough. Aside from that, they certainly had really pretty decorations inside!
The ketchup here was... entertaining.
Grant wasn't pleased with the tapas sort of menu (but that's just what Todd and I love) - but he did enjoy a cold glass of Fanta. We got some nachos (no, really), some Camembert, some calamari, some croquettes and ultimately, a bowl of pasta with butter for Grant. DEEP SIGH.
It wasn't a long walk from our dinner restaurant to Het Zand, the square that was beautifully lit up for the holiday season. Our car was in the parking garage underneath. Good thing I took a picture (see the beginning of this blog) to remember where we parked!
When we got back to the hotel I made this INCREDIBLE discovery. WHAT. IS. THIS. It's a door knob. Like a real, grip-and-turn American door knob. I haven't seen one of these in I don't know how many years. Europe almost EXCLUSIVELY uses the lever handle. This really blew my mind!
Until next time, Bruges! I look forward to visiting you in the summer one day!
