It’s been a pretty crazy summer around here, but we have to
take advantage of the long weekends as long as the Government furloughs are
still in effect. Our first of 11 unpaid
days off was on July 19th. We
had originally planned on going to the Alps and camping, but the weather turned
for the worse. We decided that we still
needed to go do something, so we went down our list of things that we want to
do and see and settled on Brugge, Belgium.
We made a great choice!
We took off for Brugge on Friday morning. It was a little over four hours to Brugge
from Kaiserslautern. We basically went
up and around Luxembourg, past Brussels, and then it was a straight shot to
Brugge. We got checked in to our hotel
and headed out to explore!
It was about a 10 to 15 minute walk from our hotel to the
city center. First thing on the agenda
was a boat ride on the canals through the old city center. Some pictures from the boat ride:
Our take on Brugge is that it is a perfect
mix of the old medieval charm of Rothenberg, the beautiful canals of Venice,
and the awesome architecture of the Netherlands.
After our boat ride, we wandered around the old town and
made our way into a couple of the amazing churches that Brugge has to
offer. Our first stop was the Church of
Our Lady. The structure itself is mainly
from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. At 122.3 meters high, it’s bell tower is the
tallest structure in Brugge. Along with
the beautiful stained glass, there is a Madonna and Child sculpture by
Michelangelo that was created around 1504.
Our Rick Steves guidebook said that this sculpture was made during the
same period as his statue of David. Rick
said that when he needed a break from David, he worked on this statue. It was pretty small, but impressive
none-the-less. Here are some pictures of
the church and the statue:
The next Church that we went into was the Basilica of the Holy
Blood. The small chapel itself was very
impressive with its elaborately painted walls and ceiling, but it didn’t get
the name of Basilica of the Holy Blood for nothing. This church holds a relic of the Holy Blood
that was allegedly collected by Joseph of Arimathea and brought from the Holy
Land by Thierry of Alsace. It was
pretty cool to see and think that you could be looking at the blood of Jesus! It actually ran chills through our
bodies. Here are a few pictures of the
church and the area where the relic is housed:
After wandering around town a little more, we found a little
bar called T’ Brugsch Bierateller to sample some delicious Belgian beer. We ended up going back to this little bar a
couple more times during our stay. The bar tender was really cool and had lots
of advice on things to do and see. After
dinner and a pint at an Irish bar, we called it a night and headed back to the
hotel.
Saturday was a day full of climbing and sampling beer. We first went to the bell tower in the Market
square and climbed all the way to the top to get these beautiful views of the
city:
After that, it was off to the Halve Mann Brewery. We took the brewery tour and really enjoyed
our tour guide. She had a really dry
sense of humor and was pretty witty.
After the tour, we made our way to the tasting room where we enjoyed a
sampling of their beer and a very good sausage and Old Brugge Cheese plate.
We rounded out our day by going to a couple different
beverage establishments to do some samplings and ended up back at T’ Brugsch
Bierateller for one final drink. We
called it a night early on Saturday because we had a long day ahead of us on
Sunday. We had a morning bike ride in
the plans and then we were heading home.
We woke up Sunday morning, packed all of our stuff, and
headed down town to pick up our bikes.
After we got all of our gear, we headed through the downtown area and
out of Brugge. We were headed for a
little town called Damme. The ride out
to Damme was along a canal the entire way.
We enjoyed the beautiful countryside and even saw a windmill. This section of Belgium was under Dutch
control for a long time, so you can see that influence all around.
After a quick tour of the little town and
bite to eat, it was back to Brugge to begin our trip home. We had a pit-stop at a souvenir shop to pick
up our purchases that they were holding for us, and made out way back to the
car. It was a long trip home! We stopped in Bitburg (another military
base) for gas and dinner, and finally made it back to Kaiserslautern around
9PM.
We really enjoyed our time in Brugge! I would highly recommend spending a couple
days there if you ever get a chance. The
more time we spend in Belgium, the more we are liking it. Don’t get confused though…….It’s nowhere
close to Ireland on our list of favorite places to go!
Here are a few random pictures that we thought turned out really well!
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