Travels

Prior to making the trip to Amsterdam in the first place we had spent time discussing with friends the possibility of meeting up in Europe.  As you can imagine, schedules were flying all over the place and in most cases it proved impossible to synchronize vacations.  However, in the cases of Allen and Julie as well as Layne, Jenny and Jodie, the magic worked.

In the last post I wrote of Allen and Julie arriving.  Now it’s time for a planned drive to the little, medieval walled-city of Bruges in Belgium.

The Lisenbees had arrived in Europe ten days ago and had met up with Jenny’s brother for a tour of London and surrounds.  They planned to travel on the Eurostar train via Brussels and meet us in Bruges (pronounced brooshj (rhymes with rouge)).

We four, on the other hand, loaded our bikes into the van and with the assistance of our Tom-Tom GPS unit, (which uses a voice that I think sounds like Gina Bellman), drove the 166 miles (almost 3 hours) from Amsterdam to Bruges…..”In 800 meters, turn left, then…Take the Motorway”… and we’re off.

The drive itself was easy enough.  It was a Sunday and the traffic was rather light. We drove, gawked and chatted our way to Bruges with no incident.

Belgium was part of the Netherlands until the Belgian Revolution in 1830.  Since early times Belgium has been loosely divided into 3 regions; Flanders which is primarily Dutch-speaking, Wallonia the Brussels-Capitol region is officially bilingual but for all practical purposes is primarily French-speaking and along the border with Germany the most common language is unsurprisingly German.

Of further interest is that beginning 1n about 2007 an electoral dispute between the Francophone and Flemish parties continually plagued the standing parliamentary government coalition, which finally collapsed in April 2010.  Since then there has been no new government.  Those officials who were in office at the time have been ‘care-taking’ until a new coalition government is elected.

We finally arrived at Bruges which is the capital and the largest city in the West Flanders area of Belgium.  It covers an area of 13,840 hectares (about 53.5 sq mi) and has a population of about 118,000.  We, however, were only interested in the historic walled city centre which is a prominent World Heritage site. It is oval-shaped and about 430 hectares, (about 1.5 sq mi), in size and is populated by only around 20,000 of the previously mentioned total.

We made the turn from the modern city-streets of Bruges onto cobblestones and through a narrow archway, one of the remaining medieval gates into the walled city; “The Kruispoort”, into the old city….. (no time-shock there!!).

 

 

Thanks to our little GPS unit and to BJ’s superb map-reading skills we slowly, carefully made our way down tiny little streets and around totally blind corners in our VW Transporter van (which is a little ungainly for this exercise) until we arrived in front of the ‘Hotel Der Brughe’.

We checked-in and, asking about the Lisenbees, learned that they too had checked in but were currently out in the town.

After climbing three flights of steep stairs, ducking under support beams and stowing our gear and opening the windows in our small (but cute) attic room we headed out for a little exploring and to kind of watch for the others.

 

 

 

 

 

We walked down quiet, deserted cobblestone streets both admiring the architecture and wondering where everyone was until we noticed that just ahead was a clock tower and many, many people.  We had found our way to the central square and any feelings we had harbored about the town being empty were immediately out the window!

 

 

As we entered ‘Market Square’ we were presented with a huge open space flanked on one side by “The Belfry” at 401 feet, on another by City Hall and the Post office, the remaining two sides are occupied by numerous buildings dating from as early as 1100 a.d. and currently fronted by shops and restaurants. In the center of the square is an island with a statue of  Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninc who are known as patriotic heroes and are reputed to have fought in the ‘Battle of the Golden Spurs’.  [for more information:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Breydel ]

I understand that in winter a large outdoor skating rink is set up in Market Square.  That, I think, would be a lot of fun.   Especially around Christmas when in addition to the night-lighting of all the buildings there would be colorful Christmas decorations and lighting (and hot chocolate, and wassail, and hot-spiced wine)

Well, we kind of strolled around getting our bearings and then decided (as we usually do) that lunch was in order.  We walked down a row of restaurants with typically outdoor seating, reading the posted menus as we went and chose one that seemed to specialize in mussels-by-the-bucket.  Now, I don’t care for mussels so much but BJ, Allen and Julie all do so that’s fine by me…I can order something else.

We were seated, ordered a beer and some fries and watched people walk by.  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and the watching was fine.  Our bucket O’ mussels came (as did my soup) and both were declared to be outstanding.  I even tried some mussels…of the ones I’ve ever had I disliked these the least.  Everyone else though said they were terrific!

As we ate I saw Jenny’s brother Jay and his good friend John walking by.  I jumped up and ran out to snag them and invited them to dine with us.  It turned out that they too were looking for the others.

After knocking down the fries, soup, mussels, garlic bread and beer we all set off for the hotel to either meet up with Layne and Jenny or to take a nap.  Which ever occurred was ok with us.

 

 

 

Walking along the canal toward the hotel we saw Jenny hanging out of an upstairs window, waving a towel and shouting ‘Helloooo”.  Then, Layne joined her and in another window was Jodie.  The gang’s all here.  We all met up, exchanged stories and decided to do some serious sight-seeing.l

 

 

 

We walked around the town checking out the beautiful lace-work, the architecture, the canals, and of course sampling chocolate…..Belgian chocolate is great!   We did sample a bit here and there. (oh yeah!)  In the course of our exploration we found the old fish market which was being used at the time of our visit as a dance floor.  Everyone was having a great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We watched for a while then moved on in search of a restaurant that had been recommended.  We eventually located ‘Bruges Square’, (a much smaller area than the market square), here we chose a restaurant that was capable of seating the whole group….all nine of us.  We had a great meal, joked with the wait-staff, drank a couple of beers and left the place sated, satisfied and in a good mood.

As the evening wore on and we walked off dinner we heard people singing (badly) to American oldies.  As we rounded a corner we were presented with a crowded pub full of happy looking people.  Discretion being the better part of valor we chose to join in.  We found a table just being abandoned on the patio and jumped in.  Amazingly, a few beers later we found ourselves singing along (badly) with the crowd …”sweeeeet Caroline…bum, bum, bum,…good times never seemed so fine…”  who’ve thunk?  Half way around the planet and we’re drinking Belgian beer and singing Neil Diamond in a pub in a medieval walled city with people who only marginally spoke English (and we spoke no Dutch)….nevertheless…a great time was had by all and ‘home’ is only staggering distance away.