City of lacemakers, canals, churches and neat brick mansions with stairstep gables, Bruges is a quiet medieval treasure, easily one of the most beautiful in Europe.
It reminds an American visitor of a European Williamsburg. It is also something of a European secret.
That`s because Bruges is off the beaten path in a country that itself is off the beaten path, at least for Yankees, who are far more likely to head for Brussels if they head for Belgium at all.
This is a shame, because little Belgium, like neighboring Luxembourg, is so . . . well, so quintessentially European. It isn`t like Germany or France or Italy, but it manages to feel like a blend of all those places.
Bruges is a prime example.
A rival to Venice
With its antique brick town houses and its maze of swan-dotted canals, Bruges is as lovely as anything in Venice. It is a good deal cleaner and a lot better repaired.
Bruges (pronounced ”Broozh”) stands in Flanders, about 60 miles northwest of Brussels and less than 10 miles from the North Sea. About 35,000 people still live in the compact oval that was the original walled city. The population of the whole urban area is close to 120,000.
The surrounding countryside is as gentle as the heart of the old city. With its pale sky, this part of Belgium looks like a watercolor, and often it is: Everything testifies to the nearness of the sea and the frequency of rain. The fields are low and flat, with canals that crisscross them until they look like blue-green plaid.
A bustling history
Gazing at the pleasant Flemish landscape from the bank of a canal, or sipping good beer in a Bruges cafe, you would never imagine that Bruges in the 12th to 15th Centuries flourished as one of Europe`s most important ports.
Settled more than 1,000 years ago, the city grew up where a small river, the Reye, met a deep inlet of the North Sea called the Zwin.
Thanks to the Zwin, Bruges became a pivot point for North Sea trade, including wool from England and commerce from the cities of the Hanseatic League. Seventeen countries based representatives here, making Bruges, in its day, a world market.
Looking back, the seeds of doom were planted early. Even while the city grew, the Zwin was slowly silting in.
As early as 1180, Bruges investors began developing a smaller port, called Damme, closer to the ocean. That worked well for a time, but by the middle 1400s, the city of Antwerp had eclipsed Bruges in trade and power, and it never regained its strength.
Saved from doom
It is failure, then, not success, that preserved Bruges.
Antwerp, for example, was heavily bombed during World War II, as were Rotterdam, London, Hamburg, Bremen and Cologne.
But Bruges escaped damage in both world wars, its only appeal for the 20th Century being its medieval beauty.
Where else but Bruges could you stroll through flocks of daffodils in the grounds of a still-occupied 13th Century convent; ride a canal boat for an hour past ancient housefronts and under ivy-draped bridges; admire artworks by Michelangelo and Hieronymus Bosch; get a lesson in lacemaking; browse at a canalside flea market; and have an early supper as good as anything in Paris- all in a single afternoon?
Made for walking
Bruges is a walkers` city-not just because that is the sweetest way to tour it, but because only a few of its streets are wide and straight enough to make driving worth the effort, particularly on a busy weekend. (The city is well-known to Europeans, and they come in force for holidays from early spring through fall.)
The local tourist office`s very good map lists nearly 75 significant points of interest, organized into five walking tours in and around the town. Technically, of course, any corner in a city this old would be a point of interest, but the official list is limited to such standouts as:
– The 260-foot Belfry, built between the 13th and 16th Centuries, which has a 47-bell carillon and a carilloneur who rings out concerts on it several afternoons a week.
– The Markt, the city`s vast central market square, which stretches out at the foot of the Belfry.
– The Basilica of the Holy Blood, begun in the mid-1100s, whose great relic is believed to be an actual sample of the blood of Christ.
– The Town Hall (1376-1420), with its handsome Gothic Hall on an upper floor.
– The Gruuthuse Museum, a 15th Century palace that displays medieval art and crafts from weaponry to lace; the Groeninge Museum, known for its collection of Flemish masterpieces; and the Memling Museum, part of the Hospital of St. John, which displays 15th Century paintings by Hans Memling, the best-known artist from Bruges` golden years.
A walled village
There is also the Beguinage, a kind of convent that reveals a less familiar side of medieval life in Belgium.
Beguines were not true nuns, just pious women who chose to live in walled communities like this one-a miniature village with its own greensward, church and cottages-that stands beside the Minnewater, or Lake of Love, at the south end of Bruges.
Visitors may tour a beguine`s house, restored to the way it would have looked in about 1600, or just sit and enjoy the little park inside the walls of the Beguinage.
It now belongs to an order of Benedictine sisters, and you often see them, their black robes fluttering in the breeze as they hurry across the green, going from living quarters to church services.
With a little more time, you can include a visit to the lacemaking center (Kantcentrum) in the northeastern part of the city, where the clicking of the wooden bobbins-up to 200 for a complicated pattern-makes a gentle counterpoint to the craftswomen`s voices.
For centuries, Bruges was famous for its handmade lace, but commercial lacemaking has all but died out here, as it has throughout Europe.
What killed it, said a spokeswoman for the school, was partly the simplification of women`s clothing styles in this century, and partly the rising cost of labor: Except in the Orient, where handworkers are still poorly paid, lace simply costs too much to make by hand.
The Bruges center, however, is leading a revival of the art, teaching classes, selling supplies and giving lace hobbyists a place to meet and work. ”People,” the spokeswoman explained, ”love to do something that they`re not obliged to do.”
Belgians are at the top of the list when it comes to the number of calories consumed per person daily. They average 3,645 calories, which
(depending on which survey you read) is either the most in the world or the second most after Ireland.
A visit to Bruges will show you at least one reason why: The favorite tourist snack is french fries topped with a goodly blob of mayonnaise. Little booths near major sites dish up thousands of servings a day, and most have a choice of flavors.
For more elaborate dining, Bruges is a banquet, but be prepared to pay well for the privilege of enjoying the best.
If you like to shop, lace, traditionally associated with Bruges, is still the city`s hottest tourist souvenir. But very little of what`s sold here is actually made in Bruges. Most comes from the Orient now, where labor is cheaper. Genuine, handmade Belgian lace, when you can find it, will be very expensive.
For example, handmade placemats in a not very complicated pattern ran about $50 apiece last summer in Bruges. Stickers in shop windows identify dealers of Belgian-made lace, but that doesn`t mean everything in a given shop is made in the country.
Nor does a ”Made in Belgium” sticker on a piece of lace mean that all of it was made there. Some pieces are assembled in Belgium of elements made elsewhere, and many examples of made-in-Belgium lace consist not of complicated bobbin lace but merely of loops of narrow tape lace, an easily made variety.
For more information on visiting Bruges and Belgium in general, contact the Belgium Tourist Office, 745 Fifth Ave., Suite 714, New York, N.Y. 10151;
(212) 758-8130. –
