TELGEN VACATION
REPORT
Bruges, Belgium, June 2000
Two
events occurred at the end of June to send us over to the continent once again.
The first, of course, was the summer holiday; since David goes to an American
school, vacation starts in mid-June, as opposed to mid-July, when most European
schools finish. This made any place we went less likely to be flooded with
tourists. The second event was the 24-hour auto race in Le Mans, France, which
took place that same weekend. Since my dad works for the Corvette team, he and
my mom had flown over for the race. The plan was to meet up with them after he
had recovered from his all-nighter, then rent a car and tour Germany. Prior to
that, however, the three Telgens had a free weekend to spend, with the only limitation
that we wanted to be within a short train trip of Cologne, our meeting point.
Belgium seemed the logical choice, and we had heard wonderful things about
Bruges, or Brugge, as the locals spell it. The city is built along a series of
canals, and retains a medieval flavor that is extremely picturesque.
(Deliberately so, as we noticed a lack of billboards, satellite dishes, and
other unsightly evidence of modern construction.) This building in the picture
is one of only two in the city that retain their wooden facings—and it also
happened to be our hotel. We took this shot from a canal boat, which is the
best way to take a tour of the city. The city's canals are connected with
various waterways throughout Europe, so you could actually travel to the North
Sea or further into the interior of Europe. (If you had your own boat, that is.
Passenger service by boat beyond the city isn't really available.) Bruges was
actually a major trading city from the 13th to 16th centuries, until the
estuary on which it sat silted up. So today the major function of the
canals—and of the city itself, really—is tourism. And at that it excels, having
some two million annual visitors (in contrast to a population of 115,000 in the
old city and surrounding areas).
The
best way to really enjoy Bruges, however, is by walking. The area of the old
city is relatively small, so we could sample most of it by walking fifteen to
twenty minutes in various directions from our hotel. (As you might be able to
tell from these pictures, we had very sunny weather for our weekend—unusually
so for the place and time, as the highs approached 90°F. So our walks weren't
quite as pleasant as they could have been, but we still managed to see most of
what we wanted without suffering from heatstroke.) We toured various historical
buildings that ranged from medieval to gothic. This picture shows the former
St. John's hospital, which was built piecemeal, as you can probably tell from
the picture. The tower and three wards were first built in the 12th century,
with additions (including two more wards and an apothecary) being added over
the course of five hundred years. I like how the additions jut out from the
original building and appear to almost float in the canal.
Other buildings we saw included a medieval
church modeled after Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, complete with
spooky skeletal altar; the complex also contained a lace center that had a
little museum and demonstrations of this traditional Flemish art. Another
impressive building was the Gothic town hall, which was built between 1376 and
1420 and contained a beautiful, wood-paneled hall with scenes depicting various
stories of the New Testament. We also found an 18th-century windmill that was
still in working order, although to view the interior you had to climb a very
steep staircase that wasn't fixed to the ground, as it rotated along with the
rest of the building to take advantage of the prevailing wind.
At
the heart of Bruges are two large public squares that are linked by a small
street, making it easy to navigate around. The oldest (and smaller) square is
Burg, so called because a Flemish count built a castle (i.e., burg) there in
the mid-800s. There is a 12th-century palace, the aforementioned Gothic town
hall, and a 12th-century basilica. It is the larger square, the Markt, which is
more scenic, however, primarily because of the 272-ft-tall Belfry, which you
can see in the picture to the right. Although the Markt also has an impressively
ornate 19th-century government building, it is the Belfry, begun in 1240 and
added onto in the 14th and 15th centuries, that naturally stands out. If, like
us, you managed to climb the 366 steps to the top of the tower, you could get a
wonderful view of the city, as well as a peek into the inner workings of the
clock and carillon. The Belfry has had a full-time carilloneur for the past few
centuries, and it was quite an experience to sit in the Markt on a warm summer
night, with the sun going down, and listen to an open-air concert featuring all
47 bells of the carillon. (Since the other three sides of the square are
virtually wall-to-wall cafes, we could enjoy a lovely after-dinner treat at the
same time.)
My favorite place—at least in name—had to
be the "Princely Beguinage of the Vineyard," a former home for women
called begijns, who were religious women who took no vows, unlike nuns.
The inhabitants of the beguinage undertook pious acts (such as caring for the
sick) and helped support themselves by making lace. They died out in the 1920s,
however, and since then the complex has served as a convent; its cloisters are
open to the public a few hours a day, and it was a very peaceful, shady place
in which to wander around and rest.
As
much as we enjoyed Bruges, however, eventually we had to leave to meet the
folks in Cologne (Köln). (We also wanted to avoid the incoming hordes of
football fans who were in Belgium and the Netherlands only to see football
matches in the Euro 2000 tournament. Evidently it's the third largest sporting
event in the world, after World Cup soccer and the Olympics.) We got on the
train, rode for a couple of hours, and emerged into the hot sunshine to be
greeted by this amazing sight. (That's correct, it stands right next to the train
station.) Measuring 157 meters (that's 515 feet, for you metrically illiterate
types), the spires of Cologne's Dom were once the tallest structure in Europe,
at least until the Eiffel Tower was built. Interestingly enough, it took over
630 years to complete the Dom, as after the first three hundred years the
project ran low on funding, interest, etc. The Romantics of the early
nineteenth century, however, discovered the medieval designs for the building
and thought it would be fun to finish it. A public campaign ensued, and the Dom
was finished in 1880, using the same style. It's now the most visited monument
in Germany, with good cause. It's really hard to convey just how huge it is;
perhaps you can get an idea from this picture, or perhaps I just need to tell
you it's impossible to get the whole thing in one shot unless you're in the air
a couple of blocks away. Or I could tell you that there are more than 500 steps
to get to the top of the tower, and that the three of us climbed them all. We
managed to survive (again, it was a hot hot day), meet up with the folks, get
the rental van, and proceed further into the German countryside. But if you
want to read about that, you'll just have to click on the "Next" link
below…
Copyright
© 2000 by Diane Telgen. All rights reserved.