Blogs from Brugge, Saint-Raphael, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, Europe - page 4

A quick train trip from Amsterdam and we are in Brugge, Bruges. Next to the train station is an Etap Hotel, a typical Etap, similar to our Formula 1 or Ibis Hotels and only a fraction of the price of the other hotels in Brugge. Brugge, like Venice and Amsterdam is a canal based city and at one time was considered the commercial hub of the world. Historically, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, there doesn’t appear to be any evidence of mankind prior to the fortification of the Old City in the first century. This took place just after Julius Caesar’s victories of the Menapii. Since then a myriad of conquers have lined up to claim Brugge as their own, from the Franks, Napoleon and the Germans used the port, during the First World War for ... read more

This morning the weather has taken a turn for the worse. It is a bit cooler than it has been for the last three days and a bit wet!! Not to be deterred by a bit of drizzle, we headed off to do a canal boat tour. We bought our tickets and just missed out on getting straight onto a boat. After waiting patiently for about 20 minutes with no-one else turning up, we were taken on a private canal boat tour!! A private tour is worth €207.00, but we only paid the standard price of €6.90 per ticket. How lucky is that?! Next we bought some Tia Maria that we tracked down in an 'English' bottle shop/tobacconist yesterday on our way to the Beguinage. Coffee liqueur has been really hard to find in Belgium!! After ... read more

After a delicious breakfast served to us in our room overlooking the canal, we headed into the Markt planning to climb the Belfort (the bell tower featured in the movie 'In Bruges'). The Belfort opens at 9.30am so, by 10.30am when we arrived, there was quite a queue! Since we don't have to do this today we decided to try for an earlier start tomorrow morning and, hopefully, a shorter queue. From the Markt we ventured around to the Burg where the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a Roman Catholic minor basilica, is located. The upper chapel of the church houses the venerated relic of the Holy Blood. The upper chapel was rebuilt in the Gothic style during the 16th century and renovated a number of times during the 19th century in Gothic Revival style. It ... read more

Geo: 51.2094, 3.22523"If I'd grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn't, so it doesn't." - In Brugeslol, one of the more awesome quotes from the movie In Bruges. If you like dark comedy, I completely reccomend it. It's hilarious. We happened to watch it at our hostel in Bled, Slovenia. Obviously the character doesn't like Bruges very much, but it's funny all the same. I liked Bruges. I think I liked Ghent MORE, but I still liked Bruges. Unfortunately, I was in allergy hell at the time, so I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. My allergies got back when we were leaving Ghent, and I just got insanely bad in Bruges for some reason. Must have a lot of grasses or something. I ... read more

So now for Brugge / Bruges / any other way you want to spell it!! Interesting place this. Old moated city in Belgium with cobbled streets and museums and galleries laid on. The buildings are fascinating and the Dutch influence is obvious to me – and I am looking for Flemish influence – but I wouldn’t know where to start. Plenty of churches and horse drawn vehicles for the tourists but still many cars to be more of a nuisance than anything else. I am amazed that the place can exist with 3 and even 4 languages – as there are many British here at the moment. Interestingly, the population seems to swell during the day with day trippers and they all seem to disappear during the evening. Makes it relatively easy to arrange an evening ... read more