Brugge, Belgium

Monday, June 12^th, 2023- Bruges, Belgium

        We were up at 4 A.M., still struggling with adapting our Circadian rhythms. Coffee and a muffin in the room started us off for the day. We had booked a car service to pick us up at 7:15 A.M., to transport us to the Amstel port area, behind the Central Station. We had booked a bus tour to Bruges (Broozh) in Belgium. It is a world heritage site and we were looking forward to seeing the medieval village area.

       The bus ride had been billed a s a three-hour tour of the Dutch and Belgium country side. We should have known better. The traffic on the four-lane highway was horrendous, with accident tie ups and vacationers. Trucks seemed to predominate the scrum. The three-hour ride turned into a five-hour marathon. We saw enough of the bucolic fields along the way. They were loaded with sheep. The ground was dry from lack of rain, just like everywhere else.

     Finally, we arrived at the Bargeplein (bus park) in Brugge. We walked through the park and across an attractive, red metal bridge and on into a park area that was both green and restful. The tour guide was talking into our headsets, but his English was a nuance off of center and some of his references were lost on us. The Miniwater Castle, just outside the village area, sits on a small lake. It is both scenic and inviting. It hold within a quality restaurant with a veranda along the lake.

     From the Minniewater, we crossed a small stone bridge with swans floating nearby. The guide was trying to relate some failed love story about the area, but we missed his point. The rustic cobblestone streets led us to a collection of buildings, all apparently shuttered. During the 1700’s and 1800’s many wars in Europe had left a swath of widows behind. Some banded together in small communes, where they were able to support themselves. The guide kept referring to these women as “hippies,” but I think he missed his point linguistically.

       The main street of the old village is charming. Steeply slanted, slate roofs, with gabled and pointed arches made for a storybook appearance, right out of a Hansel and Gretel story. The roofs bespoke of another era, when great snows had blanketed the area. Today, it was sunny and 87 degrees (F). The American town of Williamsburg, in Colonial Virginia, is the closest analogue to it that I could think of.

       Gift shops, a Belgian chocolatery shop and several restaurants all competed for your attention. Most of the restaurants preferred it if you ordered a 12-course meal, several bottles of champagne and a dozen violinists to entertain you. We found Straffee Hendrik’s tavern, where we enjoyed a salad, salmon croquets and some mineral water for 46 euros. The violinists were off bowling that day.

        Mary made the rounds of the gift shops, perusing their offerings, while I sat by the lake and admired the swans. Several motor launches, loaded to the rub rails  with tourists, drifted by. The village has several canals that crisscross the village, spanned by colorful stone bridges. Tour groups, students groups and hordes of seniors wandered up and down, looking for they knew not what. I had no clue either.

       We had walked some two miles today and this cowboy was dragging in the saddle. We sat for a time, in the small park area, enjoying the sun and our surroundings. Then, we walked over to the bus park for a welcome admission to the air-conditioned bus at 5:45 P.M.

        The Bus tour was running late and the driver knew it. He put “pedal to the metal” and hauled us back to Amsterdam in a record time of under three hours. Instead of the busy hotel where we were supposed to be dropped off, the driver unloaded us in the isolated area where he picked us up this morning. That meant another ¾ of a mile trek up to and through the central station to a cab stand. Along the way, we spotted a Starbucks, in the Central station, and stopped by for some sparkling water. It was a welcome stop. We sat for a time, along the Amstel River, watching the busy river traffic and the local entertainers performing for everyone. It was a pleasant visage after such a long drive.

        At the cab stand, we were picked up by and affable and intelligent cab driver whose parents had emigrated here from Algeria a generation ago. His English was very good, his native Dutch polished and he could speak patches of a few other languages. We were to become friends with this bright young lad. He gave us his personal cell phone number and said any time we needed a ride, to call him. In the next few days we in fact did so. Brahm was the kind of young person that you know will succeed at anything he chooses. On the way back, Brahm even stopped at a liquor store, where we bought some medicinal liquids for the coming days. The cabs were costing us a small fortune, but it was worth the money for me to get around. The center of Amsterdam is verboten for buses and taxi drivers to enter.

       Back in our room at the Aadler, we made the welcome discovery that the room was indeed air-conditioned J We enjoyed a late glass of wine, wrote up my notes and settled into read. I was re-reading James Michener’s classic “Poland.” The sandman found us early and we drifted off to sleep. It had been a long day, in hot, humid weather and were beat.

       As a parenthetical, unless you find yourself nearby, or an hour away from Brugge, I would advise people to give it a pass. The town fathers are trying to make a medieval Disneyland of the place, like they do in San Gimiano, in Tuscany. They haven’t yet succeeded here.

                                             -30-

                                        (1,003 words)

                                  Joseph Xavier Martin