Strongrrl: Life, with muscle: Bruges

Bruges, with a view of the Belfry in the distance.

For our first mini-excursion, we decided to drive to Bruges, Belgium for a long weekend. Neither David nor I had been to Belgium before, but whenever we mentioned the idea, people responded by saying how incredibly beautiful Bruges was. Given that it's only a 3-hour drive from Rouen, it seemed like a great choice.

Driving through the French countryside.

At the half-way point between Rouen and Bruges is a little town called Bologne-sur-Mer, where we stopped for lunch and a stroll to break up the drive. This whole area is known for it's moules-frites, so I had to partake, of course!

Moules-Fristes at Chez Jules in Bologne-sur-Mer.

Bologne-sur-Mer.

Our arrival in Bruges was a bit fraught. Because the town evolved over centuries, much of it dates between the 12th-17th century, driving is just this side of impossible. Finding our hotel required something like 17 turns, much of them on streets no wider than the car and which were shared by cyclists, horse-drawn carriages, swarms of people on foot, and cars going in the other direction. The upside is that once we found our hotel, we were right in the middle of it all. We left our car in an underground lot several blocks away, and didn't get in it again until we were headed back to Rouen.

The first thing we did was take a ride in one of those horse-drawn carriages. Yes, it's totally touristy and yes, totally magical to a 7-year-old. Actually, it was a great way to see many of the sights and plan how we wanted to spend our two days there. Brugge actually has a canal encircling the city center, as well as several running through it, which adds to both the beauty and the impossibility of having any sense of direction whatsoever. My Portland tendency to expect the water to run in two directions (North/South for example) just worked against me.

Anna got to ride up front with the driver and Krystal, the horse.

In 2000 the city of Bruges was made a World Heritage Site of UNESCO. The town is beautiful, with much of the architecture dating from the 12th-17th centuries. It is so well preserved that I felt like I was at a theme park at times. There are 17 churches (16 of them Catholic), as well as multiple government buildings and former hospitals, many which house amazing art collections. And of course the buildings themselves are marvels.

After discovering that there was an exhibit of 150 Picasso works on paper, I ducked away for an hour. The show, which also included a few dozen by Miro as well, was housed in what was once Saint John's hospital, which dates from the 12th century.

Afterwards, we strolled arounds for a while, stumbling upon the Saturday flea market in the process.

On Sunday we tripped around here and there: Anna and I went to the Folklore Museum, where they had reconstructions of life in Bruges housed in 17th-century single-room homes. While we were there, David went to De Halve Maan, the city's last working brewery (dating from 1856). We also visited the Chocolate Museum, which was really interesting and informative (as well as delicious!).

Before leaving on Monday, we visited two amazing churches: Welcome Church of Our Lady (13th-15th century) and Saint Saviour's Cathedral (Bruges oldest parish church 12th-15th century. The churches were just breathtaking. I just can't comprehend the skill, dedication, and creativity involved in creating buildings as magnificent as these with the resources of 800n years ago.