Day Seven - Brugge

Before we had fully woken up and realized what we had signed up for we were taking our first of 366 steps up to the top of the belfry at the market square. The view was amazing and just before we headed back down the bells chimed. We walked down and headed towards the edge of town were there were a couple of windmills. From there we headed back for lunch. For lunch Jacob had rabbit in a Flemish gravy and Jessica had half a chicken. The philosophy behind dining out is a lot different here. Food is not just a means to an end, here it appeals to all the senses. You don't find dishes that are easily prepared at home, dining out is a special occasion where one enjoys amazing food in beautiful settings. Not that we don't have that sort of thing in the United States, and we are in an already beautiful and tourist centered location, but it does not seem as though the public relies on restaurants for meal after lackluster meal experience as people do in the U.S.

Also, I have no idea how Europeans stay hydrated since water is so hard to come by and is never cheap. Were sticking to beer since it is cheaper and quenches your thirst so much better.

After lunch we walked around and shopped for a few gifts for family back home and patronized an amazing local artist. We went back to the hotel to drop some stuff off and picked up the tripod for some night shots.

We left the hotel to visit a tavern with over 300 beers, but it is closed on Wednesdays so we will have to try back tomorrow. We walked around looking for a place for dinner for about an hour and returned back to the same square we had eaten before since everything there seems to be about 25% less expensive. Jessica had a Flemish beef stew and Jacob had a pot full of mussels in a beer cream sauce, there must have been at least 40 of them.

We headed out after dinner to take some night photos with our tripod. It was drizzling and unfortunately the cameras could not pick up exactly how beautiful it made everything.


Jacob's mom emailed him a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the Belfry in Brugge. Since we got to see the same sight that Longfellow did and wrote about we find it very appropriate to post it here.

The Belfry of Bruges

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders,--mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;

Saw the light at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!"

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.