Bruges

After two days in Calais, we packed up the car and headed north to Bruges, in Belgium. Amongst other things, Belgium is famous for its beer and chocolate! It has over four hundred breweries and it's only about half the size of Tasmania!

Bruges itself is a beautiful city, with lots of canals and lovely old (really old) Flemish buildings. We stayed in a lovely apartment about a 5 minute walk along the canals to the city centre. This was the canal at the end of our street.

It is very easy to get around Bruges. Lots of people ride bicycles but we just walked! The streets are very narrow and parking (if you can find a spot) is very expensive.  These are some photos of the canals around the city centre.

The main square is called the Markt. It is mostly made up of restaurants and souvenir shops but there is also quite a large museum and the famous Belfry. One morning a week they hold an open market which sells cheese, ham, fruit and vegetables, more cheese and more ham!  There are no stalls as such - vendors turn up in their fully decked out semi-trailers and park them in the Markt!

We found this stylised image of the Belfry, done in royal icing on gingerbread, in the window of a patisserie located on the Markt.

The Burg Square is just behind the Markt and here you can find the City Hall.

There are several noteworthy churches in Bruges. Just down from the City Hall is the Bascilica of the Holy Blood. This church houses a relic of the Holy Blood allegedly collected from Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea and brought to Flanders from the Holy Land by a Crusader.  The interior of the church is very beautiful but unfortunately no photography was permitted inside the basillica so you'll need to look it up.

The next church we visited was the Church of Our Lady, which is said to have the only sculpture outside of Italy by Michelangelo. Unfortunately, the church was being renovated so the sculpture of the Madonna and Child was covered by scaffolding and we didn't get to see it.

However, we found these amazing sculptures and headstones in a courtyard just outside the church.

On another tangent, we found this fantastic but very small patissierie and bought one of these amazing apple pies. The pastry chef used to work in a two Michelin star restaurant - and as well as being supremely talented, he was great fun to talk to! Look up Patisserie Academie!

Our final bit of Bruges culture came from the free harp concert by Luc Vanlaere we attended at the Oud St Jan Hospital.

Make sure to put Bruges on your 'must see' places to visit!