Loving Lovely Bruges (#38)

We booked a castle while in Brugges.

We are starting to get the hang of the Eurail pass.

We stayed at the Duke Palace hotel which had a wonderful large room and great breakfast.

Wandering around the hotel, we found the curch within the walls of our htoel. We also had the oldest elevator in Bruges (1920) going up to the tower in the Palace. It was an open cage that we didn't use.

We ventured to the main square and took a so-so history tour in order to get the the top of the building for a view and snack.

The roof of this small cathedral has a roof that looks like the hull of a ship to signify the wealth they would have received from their marine trade. Bruges was our first city in Belgium which broke off from the Netherlands to stay Catholic while the Netherlands was protestant.

The exterior of the church from the picture above. There was a lower and upper church. The upper church was for the wealthy pictured above, and the bottom was for the commoners. We didn't see the bottom because a service was in progress.

Bruges mascot is a Bear and there were Bear remains found in the main center square when a market was created.

We had another wonferful boat tour on a beautiful day.

This bulding has the turrets on top for the homing pidgeosn to carry messages.

These are the pipes representing the 4 beer pipes to transport Beer from the city center to the bottling plants 2 kilometers away. The underground beer pipes were funded through gofund me and funders of 7.5K Euros or more can have a free beer for life.

We paid to enter the church in order to see the Micehlangelo.

She didn't dissapoint. The Madonna and Child was commissioned in Italy. This is the only Michelangelo sold outside of Rome and from Michelangelo. Napoleon took her and she was returned. After WW2, she was returned from the American Army officers responsible for retrieving art before the Russians arrived featured in the movie the "Monuments Men"

The artistry of the painting on this vellum book was amazing. We were visiting the castle of

We went for lunch at this quaint restaurant with 4 2 person table. The hostess did her best to dissuade all three couples that arrived at the same time from staying for lunch. She said there was a fixed menu, cash only, and would take more than 1.5 hours. Once we would agree to the terms, we were granted an opportunity to have lunch at her estabilishment. Food was great, but the experiencee was even better. Ted loved the interesting beer glasses.

Afterwards we found the Chcocolate museum which featured Belgian Chocolate manufacturing.

The Belgians are famous for making the pralines - chocolate with a filling. Story is that a pharamacist starting coating medication with chocolate. People kept coming back for more medicine, and then they decided to make other fillings. The closed the pharmacy business and became chocolatiers.

This was an interersting small model of the chocolate process.

We love dark chololate. This model explains why - more cocoa!

A model of the town.

We found a Tupperware distributor and bought European Tupperware. We learned where to ship our goods back from Bruges using BPost. Shipment is on the way.

Bruges

Pros: Easty to walk everywhere, cute town, spacious room, interesting history

Cons:Not enough time

Rating: 5 stars