Monday 11 October 2010

Brugge: world heritage city

I have been thinking about what I should write about this amazing city. I found impossible to say how it makes me feel. It's the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders. Brugge. Even the name is beautiful. Some people call it the Venice of the North because it's full of canals. I've been to Venice and I can say it's really different.

Brugge it's the belgian most famous city, besides Brussels. Maybe it has too much tourists and you cannot really feel just in one day which kind of city is. Although it's a comercial centre with an important port, you don't awake its modern life because it seems to be stopped in the middle ages. Like a fairytale, as the city you could imagine when you're a child and you think about princes and princesses, witches, horse carts, haunted castles... It's quite difficult to get to the city centre because it's still the kind of city with narrow cobbled streets but it makes the walk more interesting. Well-preserved traditional buildings, small churches everywhere and a large number of nice pictures you can take.

As all the belgian cities, Brugge has the main centre in the Grote Markt, with the Belfry or Belfort, a medieval bell tower. It's so hard to walk up it but it's really worth. The city centre is plenty of interesting buildings as the city hall, the Church of Our Lady and the Burg Markt. But you can find all the information about that in a city guide or in the website (http://brugge.be). I just wanna explain - and it will be a bit difficult because my english is not good enough to talk about feelings - what does Brugge conveys me.

When I walked around the main streets I found something different. It doesn't make me feel in my element but the quite atmosphere - despite the amounts of tourists - was relaxing. When I just left the centre and go around the canals (one of my favourites is the Dijver canal) to the north part of the city I felt like in another place, in another country, even in another world. Or maybe in other age. Of course it was interesting to see the touristical sights but I really enjoyed a short walk through time. If you just leave a bit the touristical part of the city you can find an incredible silence. A peaceful silence just broken by the river or the peal of bells. Just thinking about nothing and looking at the nice colourful houses.

Burgge has obviously important shopping streets and also a lot of souvenir shops. They were really nice but too much typical for my liking. Laces, chocolate, postcards... but, in fact, there was something else more satisfying. A sail around Brugge canals to find a different point of view of what you've seen before. The city insight. I think it's better than go for a horse ride though it can be really nice (but a bit expensive...). Afterwards it's a nice idea to find the Wollestraat (close to the Grote Markt) and there's a great pub where you can taste different kinds of belgian beers for a cheap prize and sit by the river and enjoy the scenery.

During the afternoon... what can be better than walking around the big river plenty of ducks and swans? Relaxing, lovely place. The Minnewater. It's called the Love Lake. And the closest Beguinage. Shooting, reading a book, sitting on the grass, walking into mysterious stories... I should write more about that and spend a long day in Brugge. I'll never get fed up visiting Brugge...




In this link you can find all the information about the city and also a really nice panoramic views.

1 comment:

  1. La verdad es que se ve un sitio auténticamente mágico(L)

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