You know those tiny Christmas houses people collect for the holidays? Hollow little stores in different colours with striped awnings and window panes draped with pillowy snow? They are arranged like a little town with cobblestone streets in such a way to create a town centre where the ant people can congregate before church or for market. Line after line of stores and houses to collect over the years so you too can eventually have your own little town; the bank next to the post next to the shoemaker next to the boulangerie. Well, that's Bruge - tiny little porcelain Christmas houses all in a row. Horse drawn carriages and cobblestone, full of colour and variance and ready for Santa (except he's currently in Brussels singing Layla and telling tourists that he loves them)....
I'm eating fish stew and drinking Brugse Zot biere in the busiest restaurant on the quietest street in the old village. It's wooden and burgundy inside, with ancient velvety drapes, lanterns and candles and photos of black and white ghosts in mismatched frames that look like they may tip and fall onto diners unaware at the clink of a glass. Ghosts onto laps along with pints.
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Brugge, although lovely, is NOT the venice of belgium. It is haunted and beautiful and different than anywhere I have been thus far, but having a canal does not venice make. They should stop calling it that.
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When people ask me tips for traveling, I always say to make sure that you get lost. Get away from the strictly-tourist sites, and just walk. When you leave the crowds and the signs stop pointing you in a predefined direction, you find the treasures. The bookstore with the beautiful picasso-inspired paintings on Marguerite that you make a note of to copy later, that special brewed-on-site beer, or the piled-high window dressings of old chairs that have nothing to do with the products for sale. Of course, you also have to see what all the well-publicized fuss is about. So, back to the beer (http://deesdeetales.blogspot.nl/2010_03_01_archive.html).
The best way to appreciate Bruges though is through aimless strolling, stopping off at various tourist attractions and purveyors of fine beer as you stumble across them. A good a place to start as any is the large central market square overlooked by the magnificent Belfort (belltower), which affords magnificent views over the city to those with strong thighs for climbing stairs and a tolerance for confined spaces (http://bexonwheels.com/2014/05/11/bruges-an-idyllic-cycling-town-thats-definitely-not-boring/).
Belgium is famous for its beer of course and another place where you can sample it that I retain a surprising soft spot for is 2be, a tourist trap gift-shop-cum-bar superbly located where main drag Wollestraat meets the canal. A 50 metre beer wall, displaying bottles of hundreds of different kinds of beers behind a glass screen, leads to a small bar serving a variety of good Flemish beers on draft at reasonable prices. Whether the bar is crammed or empty largely depends on whether your timing coincides with the arrival or departure of a tour group ticking off “try Belgian beer” on their itinerary, but in any case the canal-side outdoor terrace provides one of the best locations in Bruges to do the same. The uninitiated are inevitably drawn to Kwak due to its distinctive funnel-shaped glass, without realising that its other distinctive feature is its 8.4% alcohol content and an inevitable increase in the volume of one’s voice.
Adjoined to the bar is a gift shop where you can stock up on bottles of the beers you’ve been sampling and other paraphernalia, including Tom Boonen pillows for cycling fans. Mind the step – I once saw a post-Kwak shopper do a full face plant here (http://bexonwheels.com/2014/05/11/bruges-an-idyllic-cycling-town-thats-definitely-not-boring/).
Did I mention that Belgium is famous for producing countless varieties of exceptional beer? And there are several centrally located bars with a drinks menu the size of a phonebook that want to help you discover as many of them as possible. A good one to try is ‘t Brugs Beertje, where the proprietor cheerfully talked us through the many options available whilst reinstating a curtain rail that had just been pulled down by a careering British tourist who’d tried one trappist beer too many. Other good options are Cambrinus and De Garre, the only place in the world that serves the eponymous 11% lager served with a giant frothy head in a balloon glass. Find it down a little alley off Breidelstraat near the Markt (http://bexonwheels.com/2014/05/11/bruges-an-idyllic-cycling-town-thats-definitely-not-boring/).
Tja, ik heb Brugge ook wel eens bezocht. Ik kan beamen dat de bierwinkeltjes bomvol bier staan. Zelfs Westvleteren wordt er verkocht en geschonken... Ook Brussel heb ik eens bezocht (jaren geleden). Toen konden we niet eens het Atomium vinden...laat staan Brussels bier...