July 14, 2015
This day unexpectedly turned out to provide one of the most comedic episodes of our trip.
This was our last day in Bruges and we had determined we would go early to stand in line to climb the famous Belfry tower.
According to Wikipedia: ‘the Belfry of Bruges (Dutch: Belfort van Brugge) is a medieval bell tower in the centre of Bruges, Belgium. One of the city's most prominent symbols, the belfry formerly housed a treasury and the municipal archives, and served as an observation post for spotting fires and other danger. A narrow, steep staircase of 366 steps, accessible by the public for an entry fee leads to the top of the 83 m (272 feet) high building, which leans 87 centimeters to the east.’
Now, we had seen the movie In Bruges and it made us want to come to the city in the first place, and also created a desire to climb the Belfry tower, to see its famous carillon with 47 bells.
In the movie, Colin Farrell had a line which he, as his character Ray, spoke to a pair of overweight Americans at the base of the tower. As follows:
Overweight Man: Been to the top of the tower?
Ray: Yeah, yeah, it's rubbish.
Overweight Man: It is? Guide book says it's a must see.
Ray: Well you lot ain't goin' up there.
Overweight Man: Pardon me? Why?
Ray: I mean it's all windy stairs. I'm not being funny.
Overweight Man: What exactly are you trying to say?
Ray: What exactly am I trying to say? You's are a bunch of f**'n elephants!
MLW (My Lovely Wife) and I had laughed heartily, at the expense of these poor, overweight characters.
Karma is indeed a huge female dog...
We rushed out of Nicole’s house, supplied with her usual mountain of lunch food, and reached the tower a half hour before opening and stood in line, which was very short at that time but soon extended behind us just as we had seen on previous walk-bys.
This is the entrance to the courtyard, which was also holding an visual art display.
We paid our fare and entered the tower.
As one might expect of a tower staircase, the stairs are wound around a central column. Also as has been seen before, the stairs are narrow and the treads were not built to North American scale or standards. There is a rope affixed to the central column, most likely an afterthought begotten in the recent decades as the age of tourism flourished.
I imagined medieval monks sneering in disdain at this modern accessory. I also imagined the scores of hapless tourists plummeting to their death as they flailed in vain to find a handrail, after slipping off one of the minuscule treads.
This is MLW beginning the ascent, pleased as punch to be in the photo, but doing so for me to attempt to show the nature and scope of the stairs. If you listen closely you can hear her say under her breath: " I'll nature and scope you..."
As we climbed, the tower and stairs seemed to become narrower. I naively remarked to MLW, “There must be another staircase going down, there is no room for anyone to get by on these things.”
It took a while, since there were only a few people ahead of us, but very shortly it became abundantly clear that this was indeed a two-way staircase. I realized, that naturally there would originally, and for many centuries afterwards, only have been one or two monks or workers ascending and descending at any given time, and probably together, so it just didn't matter to anyone.
But now, hordes of people wearing backpacks, cameras, cell phones, fanny packs and a few extra kilos of fat, had to climb up, clinging to a central rope, swinging in as close to the central column or alternatively stepping onto a small ledge cut into the tower wall, in order to allow people to pass.
A vision of the aforementioned scene in the movie flooded my mind, but the role of the Fat American, was now played by Fat Me.
The climb was arduous; 366 steps is noting to sneeze at. We were winded halfway and had to take breaks in the various floors that had rooms in tem. As we climbed, it appeared to me that over the centuries, the walls required buttressing.
This did not fill me with any more confidence.
But I will say the climb was worth it, as there is a treasury room which contains information about the building of the tower and the bells…
And, of course, the final belfry …
This is how they change the sequence of the notes of the bells, to make a different tune. It is like a big player piano roll.
More mechanisms of the bells ....
The spent and broken metal rods and wires ....
With views that are magnificent, even in the rain…
And you may think that was the aforementioned funny story, but no, dear reader, what follows is; something I now call...
The Basil of Bruges.
We came back down and went out into the market square….
We decided we would go to the same restaurant we had eaten at on our first trip into the city. As we neared it, it didn’t look very busy, and it had a sign proclaiming All-in Breakfast for 8 euros, listing coffee or tea or chocolate, fresh orange juice, ham and cheese, Croissant, chocolate roll, baguette and butter (they had me at chocolate roll - I had to replenish the Belfry tower-climb pounds I imagined I had lost).
We actually had the same waiter as on a previous day.
We ordered the All-in Breakfast; easy-peasy, and off he went. I began talking to MLW about the tower trek, but she suddenly had an I’m-not-listening-to-you-because-there-is-something-happening-behind-you look.
“What is it?” I whispered, leaning in towards her.
MLW shook her head in warning, still staring over my shoulder. I heard loud voices behind me, approaching our table. MLWs eyes darkened and narrowed; a look I know only too well as disapproval, as she inclined her head towards a tall blond man who entered my field of vision walking with a blond woman wearing a pink hoodie. I was glad the look was not directed at me for a change...
They sat down at the table behind MLW.
The man, who was wearing a black hoodie, was speaking loudly to the female in German, and busily scraping his chair back and back, even more back, until he hit MLW’s chair and actually pushed MLW into our own table. MLW grimaced and mouthed “Jerk” to me, but uncharacteristically said nothing to the encroacher, who in turn said nothing to MLW by way of an apology or excuse.
Our waiter arrived at their table and tried to take their order. They spoke to him in English and, as some people do, tried to negotiate a combination of food that was not on the breakfast menu, asking the price of each individual thing, and could we get just this, or just that, or this and that with another thing and for how much. It did not take long for the waiter to became angry.
He jammed his tray under his arm and put his hand up to stop the conversation. “Wait one minute!” he bellowed.
He strode purposefully to the entrance to the cafe from the market square, all the way on the other side of the café, picked up a sandwich board that was prominently displayed there, brought it back to the couple’s table, and slammed it down on the ground. “There,” he pointed in haughty triumph, “All in Breakfast, 8 euros!”
MLW and I sat in stunned silence, but inside, we were rubbing our hands together in glee.
“Ah, I see how it is, then,” said the man disdainfully. “We must have that, I guess,” he sneered and waved his hand dismissively at the sandwich board.
The waiter clapped his heels together and bowed, picked up the sandwich board and walked stiff-legged back into the restaurant.
“It’s Basil Fawlty,” I thought. "In an alternate universe version of 'The Germans' episode!"
Meanwhile, I took two surreptitious photographs of the man sitting behind (or rather on top of) MLW.
Our breakfast came, served by a different waiter, a bespectacled black gentleman, and it was delicious (especially the chocolate roll); however, the coffee was cold.
During this time, the couple had been entering into high-level discussions in German; I understood a few words like breakfast, bastard, awful, country, Flemish and something I thought might have meant insignificant organism, but my highschool languages failed me and I couldn't be sure.
When their food came, the couple complained that the coffee was cold and asked the new waiter for a replacement. He said he would get their original waiter and that he would be there in a moment.
Probably because of how inconsiderate the couple were to MLW, as well, and because we often would like to respond to rude people in a rude way, ourselves, and admire those who pull it off, especially when it is in a service business setting and so much against our North American idea of customer service.
No one came to follow up further to see how either the Germans or we were doing, so we finished our meal and prepared to pay.
Suddenly, we heard the German man say loudly, to no one in particular. “You know what? This is bullshit, we’ve been here for an hour waiting for bad food we didn't want, and now we have cold coffee! Horrible service! We’re out!”
And they got up violently, the man banging MLWs chair once more, and strode quickly out of the restaurant.
“Did they leave any money?” asked MLW.
“I peered over her shoulder. “I don’t think so!”
Meantime, our original waiter came out to take our money, and we pointed to German’s empty table, saying, "They’ve left without paying."
The waiter exclaimed in Flemish, and may have said something like “A dine-and-dash!”
He ran off into the back, yelling.
We got up and snapped this picture of the couple speed-walking through the square.
They turned right at the first available street and disappeared.
Then, both waiters exploded out of the back of the restaurant, but only the black fellow took off after the couple, leaving us and the original waiter, who I by now had realized must have been the senior employee of the two, behind and shaking our heads.
The other waiter soon came back out of breath, and panted,"Gone!"
Our waiter flew his hands up in outrage and tutted at us, then gave us change, which we gave back, more to pay for the theatrics than as a gratuity.
“By the way,” I said to him before we left, “We saw what you did there with the sandwich board ... brilliant! Very funny! I am writing a blog, and I would like to put this story about the German couple and you in it. Is that okay?”
He gave me a big smile and a thumbs up. He had known exactly how he was portraying himself, the whole time, I thought. To him, it was simply a competition as to who comes out on top, the customer or him. Just like Basil Fawlty.
When I thought about it later, it occurred to me that all parties in the play were actually in the wrong; the customers were rude and so was the waiter, the waiter obviously fobbed off a less-senior employee onto them because he wanted to ignore them, and the couple escalated things from there, so why did I want to champion the waiter?
Here is a picture of the waiter, who gave me his name as Hendrik, but I will always think of him as Basil of Bruges.
Recovering from our Cleese-like adventure, we walked to Burg Square, where there had been a concert a few days prior. The Burg square is reportedly one of the earliest inhabited places of the city. People settled here as early as in the second and third centuries of our era. The most impressive building is the Stadhuis or City Hall.
This beautiful Gothic building was built in 1376, making it reportedly one of the oldest in the Low Countries. Statues adorn the building, that are of the Counts of Flanders and biblical figures.
Inside the building are many beautiful paintings, and included an old map of Bruges ...
Back outside, we noticed a tour group arriving on Segues, pretty cool way to do it!!
We headed along a canal towards the Groeninge Museum…
... which holds even more of the beautiful artwork you can find everywhere, it seems, in this part of the world…
Continuing our walk, we passed a lady who was sitting outside the entrance of a shop and making lace. Her fingers worked with dazzling speed.
We visited the impressive Saint John's Hospital, which reportedly has an eight hundred-year-old history of caring for pilgrims, travelers, the poor and the sick, I believe possibly started as part of The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, also known as the Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, or the Knights Hospitalier. It is now run as the Hans Memling museum, where there are very old manuscripts, documents and paintings preserved, and beneath its chapel and hospital ward are contained the remains of 30 brick tombs, with some of the tomb paintings still having survived.
After that we wandered, seeing visual art represented in odd places in modern ways…
...and took Nicole's advice about going down any opened door.
We travelled down an alley with an opened gate, which led us to a tranquil pastoral farm in the outskirts of the city …
Belying the unthreatening space, the walls of the entrance way had broken glass on top, whether to keep birds off or humans out, I don’t know.
We finished off our day eating (what else) at the Cambrinus restaurant, housed in a building built in 1699, where in addition to a fabulous beer, we had a delicious pasta dish, the name of which escapes me, but the picture of which did not ….
