Saturday, December 9, 2017

The Catalan invasion of Brugge




 I’m writing this from a little café in town (on day 9).  We’re staying in the European parliament/admin/diplomatic district and the café’s around us are all closed on Saturdays.  We’re trying to have a slow day today so a leisurely breakfast in a café with wifi is the go for this morning.  Here’s yesterdays entry, and sometime later today I’ll do todays.

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Day 8

Remember all those Catalonians who were at Gare Centrale last night when our train came in from Ghent – well they all went to Brugge today!  The station was swarming with yellow scarves, flags, balloons, hats and raincoats when we got off our train so rather than heading straight into the centre of town we took the ring-road path and headed for the Ezelpoort.  One of the entry gates in the original ramparts that protected the town of Brugge in the 1300’s it now sits at the end of a beautiful stretch of canal, complete with the world famous (so they tell us) Brugge swans.



The Christmas Market in the old Markt was chock-a-block with tourists and the selection of stalls was pretty limited – lots of stalls selling the same kind of stuff – funny hats, mulled wine, scarves & socks and lots of food. The skating rink in the middle was blaring out Elvis’ Blue Suede Shoes!



We chose not to climb the 366 steps up the Belfort – I’m sure the view from the top would be spectacular but we had enough steep narrow stairs yesterday and in Amsterdam.


Brugge is surrounded by canals, and has several more meandering their way through the town - its incredibly picturesque even in winter with the trees bare of foliage.




I imagine Brugge gets really crowded in peak tourist season but it was insane today.  We just wandered and tried to soak up the sites.  The range of buildings is incredible, all different styles – not even going to attempt to describe them – you can just look at the pics.







Belgium is famous for beers and I couldn't resist taking this picture - its for you Mark!

St Salvitors Cathedral was gorgeous .. but you all know I love religious architecture.  When they were doing some rennos a few years ago they came across some 14th century graves – check out the painting on the walls.





We’d got some ‘graupel’ (snow pellets) earlier in the day, the temp was dropping and the wind was whipping round every corner so we called it a day and headed back to the station (before the Catalonians) and back to Brussels.  Rather than do the uphill trek back to the apartment we decided to stay in town for dinner and make the walk only once.  We stopped at the Grand Place to watch the lightshow on the amazing buildings (and I’ve uploaded the little video to FB) before a pair of foot-weary travellers headed home.

Today (Saturday) will be an easy day and tomorrow we’re off to Amiens on the 8.17 Thalys.

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