(Carrying on from my travel blog on Wordpress, we are now heading to Bruges .....)
Oh Bruges!
Every culture, every type of person, every age, every combination of couples: older, horse drawn carriages, new sports cars, dogs, birds, amazing city.
If you ever go to Europe and can only go to one city, it must be Bruges. It has many, many tourists during the summer, but it is so lovely, so enchanting; a true medieval city.
Day 12 July 11
Now was our first time crossing into another country on our holiday. While I knew the Common Market had erased borders, it still seemed odd and anti-climactic that we missed any sign that indicated we were in Belgium.
Jeeps was supremely confident. Until what was most likely the last turn. “Oh look, there goes the ‘turn to Brugge’ sign”, I said, as it slid past us and Jeeps gaily led us three streets down and through a wonderfully scenic countryside, full of brick houses, cobblestones, hidden intersections and farm vehicles. But as was usual with Jeeps, we finally came in through the back end of Bruges, probably missing some traffic snarl of the day. I didn’t have the heart to scold her.
Shades of Utrecht gripped our guts, as we encountered another Bridge Out! at the first entry port to the old town, and then a Bridge Up for almost 15 minutes at the next entry port, while a barge of some kind maneuvered back and forth trying to avoid the sides of the locks. Much shouting and gesticulating ensued from parked cars, bicyclists and the barge hands.
Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound like a long time, and it’s not; but look … the name of the city means Bridge, so you’d think they could at least maintain them and not have one out! Of course, we didn’t know until later that there were other entry ports, and apparently neither did Jeeps.
Finally, the barge was sorted out and we easily located our B&B right on the canal, right next to the lock.
We parked around the corner by the beautiful wide canal, went back and rang the bell at the door.
A large, well-wattled woman yanked open the door and greeted us in a loud, brusque tone that could easily be mistaken for shouting: “Oh! Hello! Where did you park!?!”
“Uh- around the corner by the canal,” I pointed.
“Oh no-no-no no, that is trouble there! Do not park there! Come! I show you where you can park!”
We ran after her as she marched back around the corner to the main street where we originally had entered. She pointed to a driveway, beside her house.
“Here!” she grinned as she yelled. “You can park free here all day long—as long as you want! Please! Park right up against the garage, so my husband can get his motor machine around the car, but yes! Park all the way right up to the garage door—not in the garage—not through the garage door, just up to!”
In contrast to Mia at De Hedera, in Leeuwarden who was blonde, wiry thin, very accommodating and very pleasant in a controlled and professional way, Nicole is brown-haired, larger than life and twice as loud, with a heart of gold and a robust enthusiasm for her city. She has no pretense, is as natural and as real as the land. Since the B&B is also where she lives, she has a few reasonable rules. No access to kitchen, quiet after 11, no showers after midnight. The room itself is quite a bit smaller than in Leeuwarden, but as Nicole explains: “… everything available, (I am not an early riser)! Breakfast as you want, tea and coffee free for the asking, beer and wine cost! Bathroom is yours! Deck is yours! If need me knock on the living room door; if I am here I answer! Laundry, I do for 5 euro!”
“Yes!” says MLW with a fist-pump, possibly only hearing the laundry part.
The B&B is titled in Air BNB as 'Lovely house of the lock', located on Sasplein in Bruges. The photograph attached to the listing depicts Nicole’s husband Rudi, a hard-working man who is visually impaired and bicycles to the docks every day on a tricycle-type machine he apparently built.
We check out the bed, it is clean and very comfy. The first thing we notice is that the house contains many Mickey Mouse collectibles, and Mickey Mouse adorns everything. At some point during our stay we mentioned that Nicole must love Disney.
“No! I hate Disneyland!” she bellowed. “I just like the mouse … Mickey! I like Mickey Mouse, I did not like Disneyland, too crowded for me! I went to the one in Paris. Na, no good!”
***
OK, now I need to interrupt this blog to talk about something which has been bothering me for a while. It may help prospective B&B owners, and those in my family will recognize that this spins out of a familial obsession with comfort of a certain kind.
Toilet paper is like a stereo system. Most people buy the cheapest one they can find and will go for years thinking it sounds fine … until they hear a more expensive top of the line system. Then they are spoiled and find it hard to listen to their old piece of crap.
Toilet paper is exactly like that.
Until you have experienced the velvety softness of say, a Charmin Ultra-soft, you don’t realize what a shit-kicking (pun intended) your butt is taking from all the paper-thin, coarse and grotty cheap-o brands out there, most of which rip half way into the job …
And like a stereo, if you have a highly sensitive ear, it will grate on you immediately to listen to an inferior system; so too, if you have a sensitive butt, will inferior paper grate on you … literally.
You get my point.
If I can say one thing to every potential and existing B&B owner out there: don’t cheap out on the TP, your guests may not know exactly why they feel so good about your place, but they will, nonetheless and it will increase your ratings, I am sure. Nicole, as it happens has nice thick blue toilet paper, and albeit not as good as the aforementioned Charmin, it is much easier on me than most others, so 2 extra points to Rudi and Nicoles B&B!
Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.
***
Nicole corralled us soon after we got settled into our room.
“Now! You are planning to go out walking today? Yes? GOOD! Here is ONE thing that you must do, if you are in Bruges! Be curious! Walk down alleys, any little narrow one you see! Even go into open doors if you want! If it is private, they will yell ‘Private!’ and you can say: ‘Sorry, I am tourist!’ I still do this, and if someone yells even I don’t speak Flemish! You will find interesting things this way!”
Armed with this advice, knowing that being Canadian, we could never do such a thing, we headed out, but decided to first walk across the street to the Du Phare restaurant for lunch.
The waiter heard us speaking in English and responded in English, showing us to a table. We sat poring over a menu he laid before us, which was in Flemish and Dutch, using Google Translate to try and find bits of words we didn’t know. I already knew some: kip means chicken, spek is bacon, tomato is tomaat, kaas is cheese and of course bier and wijn. I spotted a French menu on the serving cart and got MLW to retrieve it. Using both menus, we were able to figure out a bit more. The waiter came (finally) and saw us struggling. He gave a little grin, and said, “But … there is …this.” And turned over the French menu, which was in English on reverse.
We had a good laugh at our own expense, along with the waiter, who was no doubt thinking … “stupid Americans” (Did I mention that I seem to use a Texas drawl when ordering food?) Later I said to MLW, “The deeper joke here, for me, is against him for being ‘stupid’, though. We know that he knew we spoke English and didn’t bother to give us the proper menu right away.”
After lunch, which was admittedly excellent, we sallied forth into Bruges to familiarize ourselves. We walked down a street called Potterierei, along the Langerei canal.
We saw this little fellow several times in our stay; it appears he has a mis-shapen leg....
Nicole assured us the canal water was exceedingly clean and swimmable, although in response to our perhaps over-sensitive noses, we were not as convinced as these folks obviously were ...
Eventually we made our way to Market Square, opening up to us as we arrived from a side street.
We strolled towards the famous belfry tower.
The line up to go up the tower was prohibitive so we planned to come back another day.
We had lunch at a cafe which will be the setting for one of the more humourous events in our trip on another day. On this day, we experienced a slight portent of things to come, when we overheard our waiter vehemently arguing with a customer, who was claiming she had not been accommodated with a seat to her liking when it became available. The waiter sneered, "Look Ma'am, you got a seat, did you not? You were sitting when I took your order. Not my problem you did not like your seat you chose." Finally the customer gave up with an exasperated epithet I won't repeat here, and stormed off.
After our lunch we began our walk back to the B&B, through Burg Square, which regularly holds concerts outdoors. You can see them setting up below. When we returned another day, there was a fine female singer entertaining.
We carried on to Langestraat towards the Kruispoort, one of the medieval gates bridging the canal that surrounds Bruges.
This is the Kruispoort.
We continued on along Kruisvest, passing two of the windmills that still stand and actually work along the banks of the canal.
Here was an old broken down wall, which shows the large number of bricks utilized in its construction, from what time period we could not know.
In behind it appeared that there were grounds that may one day be a new building, but according to the sign might be the site of some future carnival or circus. A later Internet search revealed that this indeed was an annual free circus festival. (https://www.brugge.be/nl/cirque-plus-2)
But it may just be the opening was used to advertise and the festival held elsewhere, as this area seemed too rough and unready.
Finally we arrived back to intersect Potterierei Street and could see our B&B in the distance.
We decided to eat at a new Italian restaurant that was right across from the B&B - Pizzeria Sforno. They made pizza in the old style pizza oven. The wine was impeccable and the pizza and huge calzones were both fabulous!
