In Bruges

Part of my research for going to Bruges came in the form of watching the classic hitman film, In Bruges.
For all the hatred that the main character, Ray, spouts about the city, it is a beautifully filmed movie if you can look past the guns and violence.
Attitudes towards Bruges in the film can be succinctly split into two camps, best conveyed with two quotes (mind the bad language).

Harry: It's a fairy-tale town, isn't it? How's a fairy-tale town not somebody's fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairy-tale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh?

Ray:Maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in fucking Bruges.

I was hoping that I would see Bruges through Harry's eyes...perhaps minus all the swearing.

We went to Bruges on the tail end of the worst snows that the UK has seen in a long time, so I was slightly dubious that the weather would be on our side. Luckily, delays on the Eurostar weren't too bad and the frozen canals and snowy cobbled streets only added to the quaintness of the city.
We arrived for lunch time and, since Bruges is a tiny city, decided to take a leisurely walk through the city to our hotel via lunch. It only takes about half an hour to walk across the entire city, and so we very quickly realised that we were rapidly ticking off must see sites.
Our first actual stop, and possibly highlight of the trip, was lunch at De Vlaamsche Pot. A cute and very kitsch restaurant attached to a hotel, serving traditional Flemish food done well. We started with mussels in white wine sauce; they were fresh, they were huge, they were delicious. The main event was Flemish Beef Stew, a heavy pot was brought to our table and ceremoniously uncovered to reveal huge chunks of tender beef in delicious sauce. The real surprise came when the waiter then brought out a huge bowl of frites and started ladling mountains of chips into our bowls. Turns out that Flemish Beef Stew is best served on a bed of frites to clean up that delicious sauce - in my opinion, the only time anything even vaguely resembling chips and gravy is acceptable.

One of the fantastic things about Bruges is that it is such a small city, and so easy to wander around. Around every corner is a pretty canal or cobbled street, but the down side of this is that it is very easy to see all of the must-see sites (and some of the not so must-see sites) in an afternoon, as we discovered when we got back to our hotel and looked at a map. Before leaving I had made a map of all the main sites that I wanted to see, and when we sat down to see what we wanted to do next at around 4pm it turned out that we'd pretty much seen everything.
Just to give an idea of how easy it is to see everything here is a list of what we ticketed off between arriving at 12:30pm and getting to the hotel around 4pm, including in that time a solid hour and half long lunch.

• Begijnhuisje - a pretty monastic square, full of daffodils in the summer. Tranquil and part of an active monastery so respect is necessary
• Sint-Janshospitaal - an 11th century hospital, there is a museum inside but we just saw it from outside
• Church of Our Lady Bruges - big old Gothic church, with pretty garden bits to walk around
• Dijver - pretty canal
• Markt - the main square for Bruges, the tourist centre of the city
• Belfry of Bruges - the highest point in Bruges, you can climb the Belfry for views over the city, but with the huge queues you might not want to bother
• Jan Van Eyck Square- a little square with a statue of Jan Van Eyck that marks the start of some pretty canals and the slightly less touristy area
• Spiegelrei - A pretty canal

Part of the reason we were able to tick of so much was because these aren't all thing to do per se, a lot of them are just scenic points or nice areas to wander around and, as you can tell, we didn't go in all that much, but we did see it and get a good feel for the city in a very small space of time.

After a little recharge, we decided to go out and tick off all the other scenic walks we had mapped out on our way to experience one of Bruges greatest offerings - beer. We walked along the Gouden-Handrei Canal, the Augustijnenrei Canal, Ezelstraat, and Pottenmakersstraat and back to the city centre to some carefully selected bars.

1. t' Bruges Beertje
   Address: Kemelstraat 5, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

One of the best known bars in Bruges because of the huge range of beers on offer - over 300! The place itself is split into two sides, the front is a calmer environment where most people will be eating, but through the back is a noisier and more relaxed room where the real beer drinking takes place. The menu is (unsurprisingly) huge, and slightly overwhelming. The staff are really busy, but happy to help make some difficult choices. We decided to start our beer evening with a raspberry beer, delicious and the least beer flavoured beer you can get!
I particularly like how all the walls are covered in beer adverts and plaques, it's a really fun way to pay homage to the huge variety on offer!


2. Le Trappiste
   Address: Kuipersstraat 33, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

This bar was recommended to me by a friend and it is definitely worth passing the word along. It's another specialist beer bar, but what makes the bar special in itself is that it is set in an 800 year old Mediaeval cellar. The ceilings are low and vaulted, there are candles and tables everywhere, just to look at it’s a lot of fun! I also loved the tasting beer paddles on offer, 5 tiny tasting beers for 12 euros, get the bar staff to help choose from their huge selection on tap. I told the bar man that I liked fruity and light beers, and the mix he put together to try didn’t disappoint. Especially for those who don’t love beer, it’s a great way to get into the spirit of Bruges.



3. Comptoir Des Artes
   Address: 53, Vlamingstraat 53, 8000 Brugge, Belgium

Yet another underground bar, but this time the focus is on music. They have live blues and jazz music most days, and the walls are adorned with artwork around music. The owners are a lovely couple, the wife in particular is very friendly – she only laughed a little bit when I massacred the pronunciation of Duvel beer (turns out that it isn’t a French sounding word at all). Again, the focus is on beer but they also do simple mixed spirits as well. We got the mixed food board and it was a delicious and perfect snack of grilled ham and cheese sandwich bites, salami cubes with mustard, olives, sundried tomatoes…yum!

Having done most of Bruges on the first day we wandered over to the Basilica of the Holy Blood on the Sunday morning where a vial of Jesus Christ’s blood is allegedly kept. You can go into the Basilica and touch the vial but the crowds put us off and we made an impulsive plan B for the day. Head to Gent! (The joys of Gent will follow in another post)

So, was Bruge Harry's fairytale, or Ray's hell? I'd say it lay somewhere between the two.
It is undoubtedly a beautiful city, full of little alley's to explore, but the hoardes of tourists do somewhat ruin the ambience. Maybe if you could find a day where Bruges wasn't swamped by other people looking to discover the city, then it might be a little bit more of a fairytale.

Things I Wish We'd Done
A walking tour : I love walking tours and thing that they are a great way to see a city and learn a bit of the culture. A lot of the tours will also include samplings of local delicacies like chocolate, frites, waffles and beer - what's to complain about there?
A boat trip : I love boat trips too, and somewhere where canals are so integral a boat trip sounds like a good idea! Sadly most of the canals were frozen solid, and those that weren't had huge queues. Forget that.
Touch the blood of Christ : This isn’t one of those things where I’ll be rushing back to do it, but I am a sucker for the slightly weird things on a trip. I think relics fall into the slightly weird, even though they’re most likely all fake it would be cool to say you’ve touched the blood of Jesus Christ.
Sint Janshuis Mill : I like the idea of windmills, I never saw a proper one in Holland and the Sint Janshuis Mill looks like a pretty real mill to me! It was only a tiny bit further out that our hotel, so I wish that we had done a slight detour on the Sunday morning to check it out.

GETTING THERE
We took the Eurostar from Kings Cross St Pancras to Brussels Zuid/Midi, you then can get an inter-city train to Bruge. The transit in Brussels is very easy, but working out what train to get on is less so. Trains are about every half an hour but the main information boards are pretty useless unless you know where your train is terminating (we didn't, I still don't).
The easiest thing to do is use the Brussels Rail website to find out train times link, but if you don't have a phone of internet access the boards at the end of the platforms will have all the stops.
Get a Eurostar ticket to "Any Belgian Station" this way you don't need to buy another ticket when you arrive. We also used our ticket to do our impromptu trip to Gent on the way back to Brussels.
The Eurostar takes around 2 hours. Brussels Zuid/Midi to Bruges is about an hour.