In Bruges (but sadly, no Colin Farrell)

Tuesday, May 27th, 2014

What a beautiful place Bruges is! I was so sorry to have to leave it last week because I felt so at home and at rest there, and also very welcome.
It's a quaint place, and there's a lot of history oozing out of every brick, so it's my kind of place. I suppose it might be said it's a bit too quaint in that it's pretty much stayed untouched and unchanged (and certainly unbombed) for hundreds of years, to the extent that it's almost become a theme park attraction for enthusiasts of medieval Europe.
Certainly during my stay I saw few of the trappings of your usual "city break" - I saw no golden arches or Starbucks logos. It didn't feel like a working city beyond the essential focus on catering for tourism - there were more coffee shops, restaurants and chocolate shops than Rolf Harris has had sleepless nights. But beyond that, I saw very little evidence of any other industry (except for a brewery, but then that is also catering for tourists in part).
So while I told my fellow travellers I could see myself living in Bruges, I've changed my mind. I'd love to live there, but to work there you'd have to be a waiter or a tour guide or something like that, and I'm not sure that is very me.

A view of Bruges and its markt from the top of the Belfry

Anyway, what did I like? I loved the people and the language. Most of the communication in Bruges was in English thankfully, both verbal and written, and even if the odd Flemish phrase popped up, it was rarely hard to decipher. Just take out a couple of extraneous a's and j's and you're halfway to getting an English word!
We did all the usual touristy things - a trip on the canal boat (and in doing so, seeing the famous Dog of Bruges dozing on his pillow in the window), a tour around the historic centre, a frankly exhausting climb up the 366 steps of the 83 metre high Belfry, a tour round the Half Moon Brewery with one of the most fantastic, funny, entertaining people I think I have ever met in person (Inge Vermeire, I salute you!).
One thing we didn't manage to do was the chocolate factory, because on the way there something awful happened - my mum was hit by a scooter. Bruges may be behind the times in the way it looks but it's certainly busy enough with motorised scooters, bicycles and horse and carriages.

Tyne Cot War Cemetery

We were warned from the outset to be careful of the roads as the bikes of Bruges basically own the place. Cyclists and riders take no prisoners as they speed around the city ringing their bells and peeping their horns - except one particular scooter rider who failed to peep his horn when my mum stepped into the road on the way to the chocolate shop and the two collided with force.
The scooter rider fell off his vehicle and landed at my feet, which shocked me at first, but little did I realise he'd bounced off my mother. She was on the other side of the road in agony, clutching her arm and in tears. To cut a long story short, she was essentially fine, but the impact was on her right side, which is the side most affected by her Parkinson's, so it really did not help at all. She has since blossomed with huge bruises (the bruises of Bruges!) and is a little achey, but it could have been a lot worse.
As the scooter rider said: "As long as the lady is OK... and my bike!"
Another trip we went on was the First World War day, first going to Tyne Cot memorial cemetery near Zonnebeke in West Flanders, a typical site festooned with what seems like acres of brilliant white headstones for those brave men who fell during the Great War.
We also went to Ypres to go round the In Flanders Fields museum, which was very well done, cavernously involving and also rather moving, especially when I watched a video of an actor recounting the personal tale of one Eric Hiscock and his unrequited love that dare not speak its name for his dying comrade. Hiscock's ill-fated friend told him his favourite poem was The Great Lover by Rupert Brooke, quoting the "rough male kiss of blankets". I admit I left the museum with dampened eyes.
One place I very much disliked and would recommend to nobody was Hill 62, a ramshackle museum owned and run by one of the richest (and to my mind most dispassionate) men in Belgium. His family has owned much of the land known as Passchendaele since just after the war, and since then has blatantly and outrageously cashed in on the memorial tourism that comes with it, especially now as four years of commemoration and remembrance are due to kick off.

Tyne Cot memorial

The museum is a dusty, dirty, pokey, musty hole with plenty of vaguely interesting exhibits picked from the battlefield and (sometimes quite horrifying) photos, but presented in such a disrespectful, uninvolving way that I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible - I literally felt grubby when I left.
One interesting aspect of the visit was the genuine, preserved original war trenches, the only ones to survive to this day, and it is humbling to see them. You can literally walk over them and through them, but they do get predictably swampy and muddy so many people don't follow in the footsteps of the fallen.
Hill 62 is a desperately sad place, where so many men died fighting for liberty, but it's also depressing because of the neglect and disrespect from the people who own the land and the museum. They take 10 euros per person, and it seems to me not a single cent has been invested back into the attraction for the best part of a century. Criminal.
Oh, and if you do go there, do not eat or drink any of the food in the cafe. You'll see why. And you'll see all the roaming, stray cats too...
But I was sorry to leave Bruges, it's cobbled streets and historic architecture, it's friendly people and straightforward cuisine. I am usually ready to come home after a few days away on holiday, but this time I was not, I wanted to stay. There was so much more to see and do, which means I'll definitely be back.
But next time I might well wear a hi-vis jacket to cross the road...

Me with Dave the giraffe. And why not?

Me with my lovely mum (the day before the scooter
 incident meant she had to wear long-sleeved tops)

Me with my lovely husband