It came as quite a surprise to me to find that the Belgian city of Bruges is among the most visited tourist destinations in Europe. All those people can’t possibly have been tickled to visit by the hilarious 2008 crime film In Bruges in which two hapless Irish hit men (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) are assigned a job in a Belgian city they’d never even heard of.
I suspect that’s true of many people, but there’s no question that the film made Bruges look like an undiscovered gem, as it was for me till I visited this spring. Of course, it’s a gem that dates back to a prehistoric coastal settlement, followed by the usual Roman domination and incursions by the Franks and Vikings. Through times of boom and bust, Bruges has always been a strategic port town, and as of the 19th century became a popular tourist destination for wealthy French and British travelers. But it was not until well after World War II that the largely untouched medieval city again became popular for tourists around the world. Today you’re as likely to bump into Chinese and Japanese as American and Europeans, and throughout the year there are well-attended music and arts festivals, including Jazz Brugge and the Cinema Novo film festival.
The inner city itself is only 430 hectares in size, with a population of just 20,000 (Ghent and Antwerp are much larger), so that you can walk around it in a couple of hours. But a 40-minute cruise among the canals that cause Bruges to be called the “Venice of the North” is a wonderfully leisurely way to see so much more of the surrounding neighborhoods.
The large main market square of Bruges, dominated by the beautiful city hall and bell tower, is surrounded by buildings of different periods, including the 19th century Neo-Gothic Provincial Hoff. Here you’ll also find the quirky but delightful Frites Museum, dedicated to the history and culture of Belgian’s fried potatoes, a Chocolate Museum, a Lamp Museum, a Beer Museum and even a Torture Museum with its own gruesome allure.
The exquisite Stadhuis Town Hall and Law Courts (now the Tourist Office) is set within the equally spacious Burg square nearby the Market. From these open public spaces, the side streets lead down to the Dijver Canal, where the city’s fine art Groeninge Museum is located, with works by Jan van Eyck and other Flemish masters. There is also a museum devoted to the Flemish master Hans Memling, as well as a diamond museum, so, rather than take it all in on a weekend, return visits would be requisite to see just how rich a history and the architectural beauty Bruges possesses.
The 13th century Church of Our Lady, stunningly restored to a bright, glowing luster, has the tallest spire (112 meters) in Belgium and one of the rarest works of art in the world—a sculpture of Virgin and Child by Michelangelo, along with a stunning triptych of Christ’s crucifixion by Rubens.
At the moment Bruges is alive with a citywide event called the Trennial, at which fifteen celebrated global artists and architects have placed huge installations under the theme “Liquid City” on or about its canals, described as “quite literally surrounded by water, but also liquid in a metaphorical sense, as a city in constant and flowing artistic movement, sometimes storm-tossed, sometimes peaceful and calm.”
In one location where there is a longstanding statue of Jan Van Eyck, StudioKCA, from Brooklyn, NY, has placed the huge “Bruges Whale” leaping from the water. Made of the kind of plastic refuse that now clogs the world’s oceans, all of it collected in just six months, it is a dramatic comment on the global impact of such detritus both on the ecology and the marine population. Two weeks after its installation, a sperm whale that had ingested dozens of just such plastic objects washed up on the beach in Spain, showing just how advanced this scourge is.
Other installations can be walked through, like the pavilion of a surf wave done in fuchsia and neon yellow. Another is a “Floating School” by a group called NLE out of Nigeria set near the beautiful a Benedictine nunnery. The Triennial runs through Sept. 16th of this year. Tours of all the artworks are available.
The Love Brugge City Card, available for 48 or 72 hours, offers free access to two dozen museums and attractions, a minibus tour of the city or cruise through its canals, and discounts on events, parking and bike rentals. Also, ask at your hotel for the free “Discoverbruges” discount card is a free and personal to receive a discount at numerous attractions and shops in Bruges and surroundings.
