Sunday was our second and final day in Bruges. We awoke
early in the morning, though of course not as early as our desired wake up
time, and made it to the streets by about 945 am. Coincidentally, places in
Bruges don’t open up until at least 10 am on Sunday, so we were the first
customers in a restaurant that advertised “Belgian waffles.” As soon as I took
a bite of my diabetic nightmare, a waffle covered in cinnamon roasted apples
and a healthy dollop of vanilla ice cream, I recognized that getting Belgian
Waffles may be like getting French Fries in France. The meal was so sugary
sweet and so unhealthy, it can’t be something that the Belgians had been eating
since the inception of the country.
We then spent the rest of the morning looking for everything
we could do in Bruges. Unfortunately, the thing that I was most anxious to see
in Bruges, the tower that Brendan Gleeson jumps from in In Bruges, was closed for renovations, and many other sights were
closed on Sunday, since religious observance of Christianity still exists in
its un-Americanized (bastardized) form.
The first stop was the Bruges town hall, the center of the
city that had been standing since the town’s inception in the 1100’s. One of
the fascinating pieces was a portrait of the room, which nearly looked
identical to the one we were standing in, that housed a large audience of
people (possibly politicians at the time of the painting) as well as
representations of the paintings that were still hanging in the room with this
painting. So it was a painting of paintings that was so….
Then, we shuffled next door to see several large portraits
hanging from the walls of another central Bruges building. Large portraits of
people that looked like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson hung up on the
lavish marble walls of this gorgeously decorated building. The last thing
really of note was the portrait shown here. Tell me if you see what’s weird
about it.
On the walk to the next thing we were seeing, we stumbled
upon a large stone tower that resembled something straight out of Damascus or
Jerusalem, and was so aptly named the Jerusalemkerk (Jerusalem Church). We
weren’t able to go in due to it being a holy day, and we walked past it to see
our next stop: the Folklore Museum.
I’ve seldom seen a more blatant misnomer. Sean and I
assumed, under the title of the museum, that it would be a gallery in reference
to the creation and maintenance of folk tales throughout the centuries,
especially in Bruges. We arrived to see a museum that highlighted the aspects of
every day life of the Bruges citizen in the early 20th century. Each
room had a theme, and some even had unpleasantly life-like manikins of people
who’s professions were shown (cotton weaver, barrel maker, tailor, etc. ).
Each room had several interesting things to see, from
gorgeous handmade pipes and canes to Converse shoes (?) and intricate lace, a
specialty of Bruges. The layout of the museum was bizarre and included two
courtyards, one that had pictures lining the walls of men at a cross-dressing gala
or gathering.
Though unsettled by the bait-and-switch, the Folklore Museum
was actually one of the most rewarding activities in the town and we spent so
much time there that we needed to make a lunch stop before doing anything else.
Upon walking around and browsing each menu (and their astronomically priced
entrees), we settled on a restaurant that I’m sure was that of a hotel, yet
they had reasonably priced food and the atmosphere seemed pleasant enough.
Sean greeted the waiter with, “How are you?” to which the
waiter seemed perplexed and contorted his face to show us so. Awkward moment
aside, we order our food and reflect on our trip so far, talk about what Sean
and I talk about and wait for our food. All the while, there is a family
sitting behind Sean that’s ordered copious amounts of food, with their plates
nearly full, who seem to be content with how much of it they ate. The waiter
came around and took their plates, which seemed to be untouched when they
passed me, and I became aware of how droll their conversation topics were,
which were spoken louder than the soft music coming from the speakers.
Upon receiving our food, a heap of pasta with fresh local
vegetables stewed in tomatoes and Sean’s Croque Madame, we took out our cameras
to add to our photos from the trip. At that very moment, the girl sitting at
the unpleasant table behind Sean blurted out, “Look! They’re taking pictures of
their food!” She said it with such an obnoxious sneering tone, that Sean began
to raise his voice at the girl, but I tried to get him to avoid the conflict
and we did.
The next stop was the Gruuthuse. This mansion, which was
built to accommodate the family of the people that owned the rights to beer
making (an extremely lucrative business in medieval Europe), now houses an
extensive collection of Bruges exclusive art and artifacts, from unique playing
cards to some more lace. The thing that was most striking about this whole
exhibit was the location of one specific item. In the first room in the museum,
on the wall is a tapestry, in the middle of the room is a model of some of
Bruges, there’s an old pot under the stove, and tucked away in the corner, like
it was a forgettable trinket was a LIFESIZE WORKING GUILLOTINE. This machine,
awe-striking in its power and existence, and still slightly stained with blood
from its use was sitting in the corner like it was nothing. I was just
astounded at how soft-spoken the exhibit was about it.
The rest of the day consisted of a few art galleries,
preparations for the trip home and a visit to a recommended chocolate shop.
This shop, which the man working at the desk at our hotel said made the best
chocolate in Bruges, stood out from the 50 or so chocolate shops we had
encountered every few steps. Besides their elegant display of all the
chocolate, the hyper-friendly service, and the excellent selection of
chocolate, next door was something exclusive to their business.
In the shop next door, owned by the same chocolate shop, was
a room with large glass windows seen from the outside where two men stood all
day crafting each piece of chocolate by hand. Some of the elder master’s works
stood on the shelves: a soccer ball made of white and dark chocolate, a
chocolate butterfly, chocolate geese, a chocolate palm tree and other
confectionary wonders. Walking in, I half expected the man to be unpleasant,
grumpy about having to make chocolate all day, but completely surprised me with
how polite and inviting he was to us.
With the sun setting, we made our last stop in Bruges. There
was a small wine and cheese shop that had this salmon casserole dish in the
window on Saturday, which we saw while looking for our hotel. We went inside
and were greeted with the Belgian hospitality that we had grown to expect, and
the women working easily convinced us, with free samples and recommendations,
to buy about 40 euro worth of cheese and food. The moment we came in was the
moment that they had just renewed their supply of the casserole and I had been
lucky in the timing, or I would have gone home empty handed.
On the train back, Sean and I ate some of the things we
bought. The salmon casserole was cooked salmon and egg wrapped in smoked
salmon, and was some of the freshest fish I’ve eaten in a very long time, and
the block of Oude Brugge cheese I had was the best dairy product I’ve had in
Europe. The two days in Bruges were packed to the brim, but on the train ride
back, I knew I was glad that we had made it.
No comments:
Post a Comment