Bedazzled By Bruges

After a one-hour journey across the flat farmlands of Belgium on a smooth, clean, almost noise less train, lies Bruges. I was first attracted to it after seeing the 2008 film “In Bruges “, a funny black comedy starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. In reality, the film shows relatively little of this ancient trading centre once based, but now inland from the port of Zeebrugge, still a major trading hub for Europe. 

The attraction for the seemingly endless tides of tourists, moving in sinuous lines from the modern railway station, is the World Heritage medieval town centre. To avoid the claustrophobic crush, we take steps down from street level to the banks of a canal and are instantly rewarded with a calm serenity. Large trees line the path, under which there are casual arrangements of chairs, waiting for occupants. Tended beds resembling allotments, cover the area between the canal and an embankment which blocks any noise from the road, heaving with tourists above. Eventually several canals connect and the locks and other pieces of engineering lining the water’s edge hint at the description of Brugges as the “Venice of the North “  

Gradually on this sun blessed day, the ancient architecture begins to reveal itself and is captured, in reflection, in the olive water of the canals. There are earthy smells and huge white swans sleeping in a small enclosure. Whilst tastefully done, the obvious feeding and domestication of these beautiful birds adds a sense of manufacture, as if Brugges is being curated.

Which it undoubtably is. It is a public holiday so most of the retail stores and many restaurants are shut but given the numbers of people crowding the central square where there is a market, horses and carriages and lovely examples of the architecture for which this city gains its status, they, like us, have not been deterred. Perhaps, like us, they thought it may be quieter on a public holiday. I doubt Brugges is ever quiet and I wonder how the people who live there do so with what must be at times, an overwhelming weight of humanity. Not always polite, not always considerate.  

Not usually a fan of tourist horse and carriage businesses, for me, the horses pulling carriages of tourists around a circuit of the labyrinthine laneways are a highlight. They are gorgeous creatures, beautifully presented Belgian draft horses with strong, muscular bodies. At a halted line of carriages waiting for occupants, the last equine arrival to the line waits patiently for several minutes and then emphatically stamps her right hoof on the cobbled laneway. She is ignored by her driver. Again, she stamps. Again, she is ignored. Finally, her stamping becomes emphatic and after what appears to be a short conversation with her, the carriage driver wheels her cart around the waiting vehicles and moves away down the laneway.

The walk back to the station along another canal path is again, serene and green, through avenues of pollarded trees and casual plantings interspersed with perfect seating spots. I reflect that Bruges is a destination I would like to see in the winter. Glimpsed between the tourist hoards, down the unoccupied laneways, as locals go about daily life, I am reminded of Bruegel artworks and the uniquely Dutch take on landscapes under snow. I imagine Bruges might be quiet in the winter months, deserted, like in this coopted image I found.    

Now, like the Venice itself, Bruges suffers from our visitations.