In Bruges
Following our introduction to Belgium in Baarle-Hertog, the town known for its notoriously complex hotchpotch of borders with The Netherlands, we skipped across Northern Belgium past the port behemoth that is Antwerp and arrived in the more picturesque Bruges. Having not seen the film that has made United Staters flock there in droves (unsure if the local tourist board considers this a benefit or not), I didn’t have any visual or cultural references or know where to go to recreate a gunfight with Colin Farrell. Turns out, I could have gone pretty much anywhere and been alright.
We parked outside Club Brugge’s football stadium, one of the most decorated teams in the country, considered buying a scarf out of appreciation for their free parking facilities (but didn’t when we saw the price of one), and caught a bus into the heart of the city. Thinking that Belgian master Jan van Eyck’s greatest work, the fantastically named Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, was contained inside its grand cathedral, I headed straight there. Considered one of the four world wonders of art, alongside the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David, and The Night Watch by Rembrandt (goggled at in my previous post) its twelve enormous panels depict several key figures of Christianity including big guns the Virgin Mary and Eve off of Genesis while art historians widely believe it to be one of, if not the, first oil painting ever completed.
Unfortunately, I very quickly discovered that I was in completely the wrong city as it is actually housed in Ghent cathedral and has been for at least the last five hundred years. Given that the work is also often called the Ghent Altarpiece I perhaps should have known better. Despite my disappointment, and to the bemusement of the staff in the gift shop when asked where it was, Bruges cathedral, also known as St. Salvator’s, similarly houses great works of art and is a pretty spectacular construction in its own right. Having survived many onslaughts throughout the ages, a feature of most remaining historical buildings in the Benelux area, it was given cathedral status in the 19th century and remains an iconic landmark of the relatively flat Bruges skyline to this day.
The central market square of the city is, quite simply, huge and trails only a couple in Europe in terms of scale and grandeur, spectacular Kraków being one. Its majestic belfry overlooks the plaza, as well as the adjoining Biermuseum, which catching a glimpse of immediately made me realise the thirsty work I had been undertaking. Fortunately, Belgium, and Bruges in particular, is extremely proud of its hoppy heritage, and finding a bar with at least three hundred options wasn’t difficult in the slightest.
By following the city’s patchwork of picture-perfect canals that line the tourist trail I was able to stop at a selection of the most eye-catching and gimmick-exploiting establishments including one that had all their beer menus attached by elastic band to the ceiling and another that had produced a ‘succinct’ list of their alcoholic offerings that wasn’t a sheet thinner than the Yellow Pages (anyone under twenty-five may need the use of Google for that reference). I thumbed to page three-hundred-and-seventy-two and stabbed my pin on a couple of humorously named drinks: a Tart Side of the Moon followed by a Pathological Lager and began my beer journey in earnest.
If you’re the kind of person who asks the barkeep to top up their pint if the foam layer is any greater than the width of a fingernail, then Belgium is not for you. On the verge of asking for a chocolate flake when my first beer was supplied in front of me consisting of at least 50% air, I concluded that I wouldn’t mind returning to the van with my nose fully intact and held my tongue. Several Herbegs, Deliriums, and beverages brewed by the bartender’s distant relatives made for an entertaining afternoon in Bruges that our next destination would need to be on form for to match. On to Brussels.
J
