On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Elma
In Bruges is a 2008 film about Irish gangsters. Why they are in the medieval Belgian city is part of a ridiculously convoluted plot. I did not see the film until after I had actually been to Bruges on a tour of the waterways of Holland and Belgium sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Alumnae Association. It was a strange sensation to see the sights I had just seen while wandering the city with a bunch of elderly Badgers.
Bruges was an important trading center from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, particularly known for textiles, until the inlet to the sea silted up cutting off the trade routes. The city then went to sleep, preserving its medieval character. It is now a huge tourist destination. One of the things everyone does in Bruges is to take a boat tour of the city by canal.
Views of the city center from the canals.
Views of the city center from the canals.
It was early spring when we were there, so the flowers and leaves were just starting to appear. The day we toured the city was overcast so my pictures are kind of dark
If you look carefully, just below the tree, there is a figure, a statue, peering out over the wall. I’m not sure why.
The swans looked nice but were not very friendly if you strayed into what they considered their territory in the park.
Preservation of the medieval character of the city center is strictly enforced these days. There are extensive modern areas away for the city center. The building on the right, with the red door and windows was pointed out by our guide as a modernization that snuck in somehow.
And finally, as a little lagniappe, the Capybara, who somehow got left out of my South American Fauna post from a couple weeks ago.
eclare
I was in Bruges many years ago as an eleven year old. Even at that age, I could tell it was special. I remember climbing to the top of a belfry and the amazing views. And of course all the lace and chocolate shops.
Tony Jay
We went to Bruges on a camping holiday some years ago, spent a week there and a weekend in Ghent when we really should have done it the other way around. Not that I didn’t enjoy Bruges, because I did, especially with my copy of Dorothy Dunnett’s ‘Nicolo Rising‘ to hand and all those vivid scenes of Bruges’ medieval heyday to match exactly to what I could see around me. It’s just pretty small and Ghent is prettier with more awesome pubs.
HeartlandLiberal
Wife and I spent a day in Bruges Spring 2015. Got to see a demonstration of how Belgian chocolates are made. Other than that, our main memory is how JAM PACKED PAVED WALL TO WALL WITH TOURISTS the streets were.
JeanneT
Sweet: those canals through the city are beautiful. I’m wondering whether Bruges is more stable than Venice….
Mary G
Really fascinating place and I also learned while traveling, though not in Bruges, that swans are angry thugs not graceful at all on land.
yellowdog
We went to France several years ago and I insisted on a side trip to Bruges because of the movie. Sitting in the town square drinking beer, we were entertained by the Socialist Party Marching Band. I LOVE Bruges!
randy khan
I am beginning to think that the best way to see a lot of cities is from the water.
JanieM
@eclare: The chocolate shops were one of my favorite things in Brussels when I went there for work some years ago. The square where my friend/co-worker lived had seven of them! As a chocolate lover, I thought I was in heaven.
Bruges looks interesting — thanks to Elma for the pics. I didn’t know it was another city with canals, and the medieval buildings are fascinating. It goes on the list for next time!
Nutmeg again
Bruges is great–when I was there, it was crowded as heck! though. We stayed in Ghent, and honestly, enjoyed the medieval sights and etc. there very much. I am a decided Ghent-booster…
arrieve
I also spent several days in Ghent on my way to Africa in 2018. I meant to take the train to Bruges one day, but there was just so much to see in Ghent that I never left. I will get there someday. It’s a lovely part of the world. In the meantime, these pictures will have to do.
Betty
Charming city.
Barbara
If you go to Bruges on a Monday it is pretty quiet even during the high holidays. Of course, some of the museum sites are closed, but the tower is open, along with restaurants and shops. We rented bikes and rode around the town, and then took a boat on the canal. I honestly think Belgian chocolates are the best, so we bought a boatload, along with pillow tapestries.
In Bruges is a bizarre movie, but it is 10 times as good as the other movie that Martin McDonough is most known for, which is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri.
Leto
Avalune and I would go to Bruges a few times a year when we lived in the UK. The chocolate shops were amazing, we had a favorite pub with the most amazing three course meal (as well as a 400+ beer menu), we’d cycle around the place and discover new little holes-in-the-wall places, and we’d always take beer orders to bring back to the base. Honestly it’s one of our favorite places ever. Thanks for the pictures!
TheOtherHank
When my sons were 10 and 7, my wife rented the movie In Bruges for a family movie. I observed that it is rated R and perhaps might not be appropriate for our impressionable children. “How bad could it be?”, was the her response. That was very convincing, so we started watching it.
When it’s time to yank their parents’ parenting techniques, my boys will remind us that the first 10 or so words spoken aloud in that movie are “fuck”.
J R in WV
Looks wonderful to tour. Love canals, was shocked to see giant high bridges in France for canals to cross a highway, or even another canal. All that water, held up by a bridge. I wonder, does the load increase when a boat floats over in the canal on the bridge?? Nah, I know it doesn’t, but still a fun question to think about…
Would have to go in wintertime, to avoid crowds.
Thanks for the photos!
PST
A beautiful and fascinating location I visited while in Bruges was the beguinage, a gated community of buildings for religious women who lived together without taking vows or retiring from the world. I had never even heard of such places, but apparently they were common the the low countries in the late middle ages. They offered a safe (or perhaps just safer) place for single women outside of convents or living with relatives. It is well preserved and still charming.
PST
Another favorite memory of Bruges was renting a bicycle, starting north on a path alongside one of the many canals, and finding myself in the Netherlands with barely a sign to tell me I had reached a border.
Barbara
@TheOtherHank: The juxtaposition between the setting and the characters is of course intended. But the deeper juxtaposition is the relationship between the (rather ironic) moral code of people doing business as hit men as it devolved from Medieval Christianity, which, of course, Bruges is a testament to. The intended target of the botched hit was a priest, after all. The racist American dwarf and the dope dealer movie gaffer are just wild cards. It’s positively subtle compared to Three Billboards. If you can’t tell, I really hated Three Bilboards and have formed a fixed view based on that movie that Frances McDormand is overrated as an actress.
yellowdog
@Barbara: Have you seen Seven Psychopaths? To give you an idea of how bizarre it is, Christopher Walken is the sanest person in the movie. Also, more Colin Farrel.
Kayla Rudbek
We visited there as well, and I was impressed with the lace work on display (most specifically the black lace, as I’m sure that caused immense eyestrain for the craftswomen) @PST:
Kayla Rudbek
@PST: yes on our bike trip from Belgium to the Netherlands, there was no sign on the bike trail to indicate the border crossing.
YoursInTheSnow
Be sure and visit the Dome in Bruge. It has a wonderful sculpture by Michelangelo – supposedly the only work that he made that was commissioned outside of Italy.
Jess
Bruges is beautiful, but dead. As a mostly tourist city, the people who live and work there are very closed off to outsiders on a personal level and interactions are generally impersonal and strictly business, with a bit of a scornful vibe below the surface. I much prefer Ghent, a university town with a nice mix of old and new. Much friendlier, although less architecturally “pure” than Bruges. I lived in Antwerp for two years, doing my dissertation research, and visited a lot of Belgium cities. I never warmed up to the country as a whole (too conservative, Catholic, bigoted), but I did like Ghent. However, I escaped to the Netherlands whenever I could. It was like stepping out of the 19th century and into the 21st whenever I crossed the border.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
I was in Bruges for one day a few years ago on a Belgium-Netherlands art history tour. I love the Flemish so-called Primatives: Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Rogier van der Weyden, etc. The Groeningemuseum and the St. John’s Hospital Museum have some fabulous works by them. We also toured an old-fashioned brewery which is now just for tours, the working brewery (much modernized) is now outside the city center. From the roof (great view), I saw the swans and tracked them down in our free time. As a casual visitor, I was charmed by everything. The canal ride was wonderful too. The tour was in April, so there wasn’t a crush of tourists (and allowed bulb viewing in the Netherlands).