Brugge, Belgium

I started my tour of Brugge with a profession guide named Filip who has spent his life hosting tours for cruise ships and river cruises. He was born in Brugge, and knows the city very well. Brugge was the largest city in Europe in the early 1500's, and was a center for trade with Italy and Spain and a host of other countries. The people who lived here were the movers and shakers of the day, and they lived in fine brick homes near the city center. In about 1550 the city fell out of favor with the monarchy, and the trading moved to the nearby town of Ghent, which also had canals reaching to the sea. As the favor moved, so did the money, and from about 1550 on, Brugge remained relatively unchanged. Ghent, on the other hand, prospered but as industrialization came, Ghent changed with the times, and much of the old world was lost there..but not in Brugge. The fact that it fell out of favor actually caused the preservation of much of what can be seen there.

One of the evidences of the great wealth that can still be found in Brugge, is the Madonna and Child statue carved by the great Michelangelo. This was the only carving Michelangelo ever sold outside of Italy..the rest were done on commission mostly for popes, but this was carved for sale to a private person who had a great deal of money. The Madonna was stolen by the Nazis in WWII and moved to and underground bunker near the Eagles Nest in Germany. After the was, it was recovered by the Americans and returned to Brugge, so I was able to see it on display..although from a distance..in the cathedral in Brugge.

We had a wonderful walk around the city, and a boat tour. We ate in a restaurant favored by locals. We went on a carriage ride around the town. We shopped for chocolates and ate them on the boat ride..YUM! My guide said to buy the chocolates in the market in town, not from one of the chocolate stores, as they are the same chocolate, and half the price. He saved me the cost of the tour with that one tip, and he gave many more that paid off as well. Ellie had a chocolate waffle on the carriage ride..she managed to keep the chocolate off her face except for one tiny speck..she's growing up! We had dinner in a nice restaurant. It was raining towards the end of dinner, and we had failed to bring rain gear, but it abated at just the right time, and we were able to walk home without getting wet (what a blessing!)

The sunset was beautiful. Brugge is an amazing city, quaint and lovely, and I could live here very easily. The landscape is flat, so walking or riding a bike is easy, and things are pretty close. There are only about 300,000 in the whole metro area, and outside of the city center, things are still quaint, but modern. We drove to Amsterdam today, and what beautiful countryside the Dutch have. We stopped at the Ikea in Rotterdam. It seems just like an American city except for the language. (Probably has an "old towne", but we didn't go into the center of town. We found our abode docked next to the street..we're staying on a canal boat! We have a tour of the Anne Frank house scheduled and a walking tour of Amsterdam later in the afternoon, so I'll have a post on that soon.

Here's the slide show from Brugge! It's a little long, but I was enamored of this beautiful city!