Bicycles: they are everywhere. Bicyclists seem to be a good deal more tame than those at home, and by that I mean people seem to follow traffic rules and signal, and there are a lot of lanes dedicated to cyclists. Maybe cyclists get hit less by cars because nobody wears helmets here. It’s decidedly more functional biking vs people at home, who bike for the sake of exercise (or sowing chaos) more than necessity.
We are joining their ranks as fellow cyclists! Lucky us. Not lucky them. Our lodgings came with six whole bikes that we could ride – and we are but a quick ten minute jaunt by bike to Bruges city center. Yay! So we started out our Tuesday by trying every bike.
My steed with a purple lock (henceforth known as burple bike) was in good-ish shape, but the other bikes we grabbed were not. I mean…they are free bikes. One had a wobbly seat and others had sad tires, and the bike pumps we had were no good, either. So….I guess we really had three bikes, and not six, as advertised in the listing.
After a half hour of fighting the bikes and me circling the bike-fixing menfolk like a shark on burple bike, we were off – down our busy street, and past the train station. We crossed a bridge, and it was like we moved back in time: the road and paths switched to uneven cobblestone, and all of the buildings looked like they were straight out of the ren faire or witcher. (There were still cars and cell phones, and the plague was different, so it wasn’t a total time hop).
I would like to preface our “we got lost a lot” remarks by saying that me, the queen of being bad at directions when they are given to me from a GPS, was not in charge of directions this time, and we would in fact probably still be lost, zigzagging through the medieval cobblestone streets, stopping for chocolate and waffles at my whims.
We can’t rely on directions from our watches vis a vis Apple maps here – they have no biking directions for the city – and with all the cars and other things going on, you can’t really safely hold your phone and navigate. We ended up missing a few turns on our way into the city, though we went the right-ish direction. It’s also really fun riding on very bumpy cobblestones, which rattle your walnut-sized traveler brain around in your skull as you fling yourself through streets marked in Dutch.
The wrong streets. But you know, whatever. Eventually we made it.
And by “made it,” I mean we gave up at a plaza that we deemed close enough to where we were trying to go (Church of Our Lady). This plaza was dominated by a statue and a Pizza Hut being swarmed by schoolchildren on their lunch breaks. Not far outside the square was a McDonald’s in a very old building. Ah, yes, my friends – bastions of American culture and capitalism. Fitting I guess, because Bruges was once the cornerstone of European capitalism way back in its heyday.
But now, we walk: up to the Markt square and then over to the Basilica of the Holy Blood. This church was built in the 1100s originally, and then gutted in the 1700s. It is home to….some holy blood (wow surprising) – supposedly Christ’s, given to a knight in the 1100s. It apparently miraculously turned to liquid every Friday for two centuries, before drying up for good in the 1300s.
The inside of the church is pretty grand, with lots of art and shiny religious objects. Always a good time to reflect upon the wealth amassed by organized religion 🙂
From the basilica, we meandered through several scenic alleyways filled with tourists, horses, and bridges. Sometimes, we saw no tourists at all. We liked this. There were many courtyards filled with blooming daffodils and some tulips and the trees are just on the cusp of turning green. It was a lovely meander til lunch.
Sadly today, I did not get to eat a tosti – because those are French-Dutch appropriations. I did end up with a really good belgian hot chocolate and open faced pear and goat cheese sandwich, so I can forgive the lack of tosti.
After lunch and several cute canals and bridges, we visited the Church of Our Lady, which is home to more shiny objects and pretty altars.
Our last stop on our wander was Begijnhof, a beautiful courtyard surrounded by homes which housed women of the lay order – not exactly nuns. Inside the courtyard, daffodils were in full bloom. It was really peaceful – unfortunately, the museum was closed, but we could go in another chapel, so we did! This one was a lot more intimate and peaceful and featured some very uncomfortable-looking chairs.
Our final business before heading back: beer and chocolate. Our bar of choice, De Garre, was tucked back in an impossible-to-find-without-a-photo alley. The building itself dated back to the 1500s, but it had been a bar since the 80s. They had a lot of good beers on tap, and they gave you a pile of cheese with your beer. What’s not to love?!
I stocked up on chocolate before my slightly drunken bike ride home. Excellent idea!
Wednesday is our last warm day of the week before snow happens (oh), so we decided to once more make the focal point of our day biking. I mounted my trusty steed, burple bike, for a second day. Surely we can’t go wrong with directions today, right?
I am very funny.
To get to Damme, we had to cross back into the city center, following the river ringing the city, and then head straight out of town, along a tree-lined canal. Sounds easy.
We followed the river successfully.
We did NOT turn on the right road to leave town and ended up turning slightly too early – so we biked out on some narrow road straight into the wind, between Flemish farmhouses and other quaint things in the countryside.
Oops.
We noticed our error ten minutes into the ride, where we stopped and checked. I mean – the gigantic lack of canal should have been a clue, but it wasn’t. I looked to our right and saw a huge column of cyclists across the field. That was where we were supposed to be.
Oh well.
We had to cut across some single-lane country roads and did eventually end up in Damme – probably a 10-15 minute detour. It was still pretty.
Upon our arrival in the small city square, I came to the realization that we should probably have our direction-giver use an airpod while biking so we can hear directions from google maps. D’oh… hindsight: always 20/20.
Well, we made it, a bit tired from biking against the wind. We locked up our bikes in the city center (farewell for now, burple bike) and went for a jelly-legged walk.
Damme is a small, picturesque town, that gets overrun by tourists in the summer, based on what I can tell by looking at google maps. There are lots of tasty little cafes, a nice town square, and a really old cool church on the far end of town. Far end, in this case, means about three blocks.
No tosti for me today for lunch, but my hot chocolate DID come with a baby chocolate.
The church is another “Church of our Lady” – this one is super old and has a flat-topped tower. It was built in the 1200s and predates the little town of Damme itself. If you visit in tourist season, you can go in the church and climb the tower, but it doesn’t open until April 1st. Two days shy. Oh well – the tower kind of looks like it might fall over anyway! It’s probably very solid, despite the sign at the bottom that is telling you to very clearly beware falling rocks and things. Today there was a maintenance crew getting ready to rappel down the outside, presumably to do some repairs.
After the church, we moseyed around the town on a path, following one of the old defensive moats/canals, before returning to the windmill on our way out of town.
Also, I found out that if you follow the right path out of town, it actually is REALLY close to Bruges. It was maybe ten minutes via bike along a pleasant and wide path to the edge of the city. This was how it was supposed to be. Probably less windy on the way out, too!
Our next stop on our winding path home was Vlissinghe, the oldest pub in Belgium. It opened in 1515 and has been going strong since then! Today it also had a pub pup in attendance, who realized after a while that my scritches were not food, so the pup curled up on a chair near the hearth to nap.
Rounding out our day, we took a canal tour around Bruges. We got here without any wrong turns! We went with a tour operator that had electric boats (the theme of the trip is also accidentally “no gas things except for the plane”). The boat was silent, and we glided through the canals, learning about the buildings and some of the history of the town.
Tomorrow: no bikes. My butt will thank me. Perhaps Ghent and a bluebell forest south of Brussels? It is supposed to get cold and snowy overnight on Thursday so who knows what we’ll do! Hoping all the locals stay indoors.