12/25/14.3 Bruges, Day 3

We popped into a shop that advertised World Famous Hot Chocolate, and OMG, was that right. It was fabulous, hot milk with melted dark chocolate to mix into it. An English guide and his wife sat across from us and we started chatting. They told us about the street and fountain where the horse-drawn carriages stop to feed and water the horses. After visiting the chocolate shop that made the wonderful chocolate we'd just had, we wandered off in search of the horse fountain. Along the way, we happened on to a little gem of a family-owned shop that sells wonderful hats, scarves, original designs of clothing. Very fun stuff, and the dad (he, his wife and daughter keep the shop open 365 days a year) was absolutely charming. We all had a great time, including him. We left, after each buying something wonderful, then turned around to take a picture of the shop. He (we didn't get his name, drat) followed us and and posed in front of the shop. A great Christmas memory. 

And as I re-edit the blog, I realize that he looks just like the man carved into the front of the Town Hall in Brussels, the one I posted a picture of.

In the Marie Brot shop, Nancy bought a new chapeau to replace the one she left on a train. Tres chic, non?

This is the fountain. Water comes out of the horses's mouths, and indeed the carriage drivers feed and water the horses there. 

This cute guy travels with his own Jack Russell terrier. They make quite the team. The horses work really hard. Even in the crisp weather, they are sweating. They clip-clop around the city all day long, and they are not slow. They prance along at a good clip, only slowing for clots of people and to turn sharp corners. They add a wonderful ambiance to the city, and a distincitive sound, their metal shoes on the cobblestones.  

And a final picture of a Bruges canal. We had a nice Christmas dinner at a restaurant we'd been to before, then headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for a travel day to get us to Amsterdam Schipol, to fly back home. We looked up the weather and saw that parts of the Denver area did have a white Christmas, but we should not have any snow before we land. 

12/25/14.2 Bruges, Day 3

More canals, more refleections. 

Loved these trees. There are lots of them in Belgium. Don't know if they are pruned this way, or if they grow this way naturally. 

This swan was just floating down the canal, looking for food. 

Display windows of an antique store that face onto the canal. This made me laugh--the Virgin Mary with a Scottish golfer. 

And Laurel and Hardy.

And from the ridiculous to the sublime--one of Michaelangelo's, Virgin and Child. his only sculpture that left Italy during his lifetime. It was in a less than wonderful setting, in the Church of Our Lady, but the art transcends the setting. Lovely. 

Also in the church were some lovely paintings, early versions of the type of painting represented by the Ghent Altarpiece. The gold leaf, the jewels in the clothing decoration, the serene faces. Early Renaissance, I think, before the art of depicting drapery was fully mastered, and before the decorative quality was subsumed by realism. Ths piece represents the Annunciation. 

12/25/14.1 Bruges, Day 3 Christmas Day

We woke to pealing church bells and SUN. For the first time in the 9 days we've been in Belgium, there was a clear blue sky. Perfect for Christmas.

This is looking toward the market square from the front entrance of our hotel alley. The Koffiebuntje used to be a coffee house, hence its name, Coffeebean. Great location. Not quiet, especially as everything echoes off the stone walls and cobblestone street, but an easy walk to almost everwhere. And a full breakfast with smoked salmon, brie, great muesli cereal, decent coffee.

This is looking in the other direction from our hotel.

I loved this sign above the lacemaker's shop just down from our hotel.

We weren't sure what would be open on Christmas, so we just took off down a street we'd never walked before. Ended up in front of a government building with other tourists, including a lovely couple with a cute daughter, from Florida. The man works regularly in Holland and wanted to bring the rest of the famiy, so they are traveling over Christmas. To Belgium and a couple of other countries. They want to continue to travel with their children, trading that for Christmas presents. Lovely way to do Christmas, experiences instead of toys. They took a picture of us, but unfortunately we didn't get one of them. 

We continued our Christmas wanderings, along with many others. Many shops were open, and part of the market. I took this picture because I loved the reflections of the buildings and sky in the water. It so reminds of many Flemish and English landscape paintings. 

 This reflection too, just gorgeous on this sunny day. 

On the canal above, there was an open air market where artists had set up. I was taken with a lovely watercolor of a Bruges skyline. This is the artist who did it, Artis is his name. As he said, good name for an artist. 

We saw this mug in one of the shops. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but that's what cameras are for, eh? Pefect sentiment for travel. 

12/24/14 Bruges, Day 2 Christmas Eve

It was raining cats and dogs in Bruges when we went out on Christmas Eve morning. We wandered around the main market square for a bit, then started to look for a nice, dry museum to visit. But I did manage to get a few good pictures. Again, the wonderful roofs so typical of these cities. 

We found the Bruges Historical Museum. This guy is a herald doing his best to draw visitors in. He is in period costume, has a lovely voice--and is not alive. He's a really wonderful animatronic. No hitch in his voice or movements, realistic skin, so lifelike. Fun to see!

But, we decided to go to another museum--the History of Beer Museum! We had to climb four flights of stairs to get there. This sign helped...

This is St. Arnold, one of the many patron saints of beer. 

This is Ninkasi, goddess of beer, dating back to at least 1800BCE. The beer museum left out which country Ninkasi was from. The beer museum left out a lot of bits of information. But it did say that her name means "The lady who fills the mouth". There was a religious aspect to brewing beer in many cultures, which makes me think of Ben Franklin's opinion that "beer is proof that God loves us." 

And this is a Peruvian figure of a woman who makes beer. Apparently beer was the province of the noble women, not only in this culture but in others. My favorite beer saint is St. Elfelda. She was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who suddenly learned that King Aethelred (don't you just love those names?) and his entire retinue were coming for a visit. In those days (and later), kings saved some money by staying for extended periods with the nobles of the kingdom. Elfelda was worried that she wouldn't have enough beer, so she prayed and was blessed with an endless supply. My kinda saint! Her saint's day is October 22, a good excuse for another holiday, eh?

With Belgian beers, duvvel indicates a dark beer, usually, and triple indicates lager. But really the terms indicate more or fewer ingredients used to make the beer. Once again, the beer museum was short of a lot of detail, so that's about all I learned.

At the end of the tour, we could each taste 3 beers. We chose several, from sour (REALLY sour, ack) to caramel brown to dark. They were all Belgian beers, from different breweries, but quite a few were brewed by monks. Monasteries were the repositories of agricultural and other knowledge. When they couldn't remain self-sustaining through farming, they turned to brewing beer and the monasteries survived 

This was, amazingly enough, my favorite beer. Made from cherries and it tasted like cherries, Kierk in Flemish. Never thought I'd like such a beer, but I did, and bought three bottles of it in the shop. Lovely color, isn't it?

Belgians use specific glasses for specific beers, hence the different shapes of the glasses in this picture. The bars have to stock a LOT of glasses. One of the guide books we read said that if a bar is out of the correct glass, the customer will be informed so that they can choose another beer if they wish. 

The rain had stopped by the time we finished at the beer museum, so we wandered around town a bit. Bruges is known as "The Venice of the North". There are canals throughout the city, hence lots of lovely bridges. And I loved the reflections of the buildings in the water.

Gets dark pretty fast there. 

Earlier in the day, we had asked at an info shop where we might attend a Christmas Eve service. There was a church that was pretty close, so we walked over there. The church was really, really cold, but the minister/priest (we're not sure what the service was--Episcopalian?) was very warm and welcoming. The service was in Flemish, but the Lord's Prayer, called the Credo in the program, sounds the same in all the languages I've heard it in. Same cadences, same pauses, same rises and falls in pitch. I've heard it in French, German and now Flemish, besides English, and even without a printed program and no matter what it's called, it is obvious when the congregation gets to that part of the service. I find that so interesting, different languages are nevertheless very similar in some ways. 

It was a charming, friendly service, partially because the priest got the kids (kinder) involved at every turn. They were kept much too busy to get bored--a far cry from the services I attended as a child. Probalby kept them warm, too! The weirdest part of the service was the drummer, though. He sat on a box drum and played along with the Christmas carols. I can't say that he enhanced them--I'd never thought of Silent Night as a waltz, but "Dancing with the Stars" could have choreographed something to this version: BOOM duh duh BOOM cha cha, BOOM duh duh BOOM cha cha. And the drummer was either ahead or behind the beat on every song! Every. Single. One. I started twitching about half way through, though I do know his heart was in the right place. The twitching made me slightly less cold, anyway. 

We stayed for the whole service, and sang the Christmas carols, which were printed in the program--some of them in English! The service ended with "Go Tell It on the Mountain", in English. In fact, most of the carols we've heard in stores and through speakers on the street are in English. And all the bars we've been in, all through the country, have been playing American music--old stuff. Dean Martin singing "That's Amore" (some customers sang along with that one), "Fly Me to the Moon", other classics and standards from the 50's on up. And Marvin Gaye, "Heard It on the Grapevine"! Music I haven't heard in forever, great old stuff.  

After the service, we found a place to have dinner, a rather forgettable place, then wandered some more and took pictures. This is the 2nd tallest church spire in Belgium, at the Church of Our Lady. It used to be a landmark for incoming ships. Now it's simply beautiful in the lights of Christmas Eve. 

12/23/14.2 Bruges, Day 1

And another magical experience. When we were in the train station, we looked, as usual, at the flyers and brochures. There was one for a harp concert, by a man who plays several kinds of harps. The address of the concert was on the flyer, so when we got to our hotel we asked where it was. Turned out to not be very far away, so we dropped our things off and walked to the concert venue, an old Medieval hospital. 

It was easy to find, and we arrived in time. The room was small, with around 40 chairs in front of a small stage. There was a couple there, from Viet Nam, and another couple came in later. I think they were perhaps French, but I'm not sure. 

On the stage were 5 pretty recognizeable harps (or at least since they had strings we figured that's what they must be), Tibetan singing bowls, a couple of metal pod things, and upright wooden rectangles with lots of strings on them. 

The harpist (Luc van Laere, www.lucvanlaere-harp.be) came out, gave a short introduction, and began. Holy cow, what a treat.  He started off on the concert harp, moved to the Celtic harp, then started playing the other stringed instruments. For his last piece he played all the instruments on the stage. 

Luc didn't start playing harp untl he was 44. Obviously the instrument speaks deeply to him. He made the monoharps in the back right. 30 or so strings on each board, each string on the board tuned to the same note. What wonderful chords they produced, when played together and with the other instruments. Monoharps are used in music therapy, mounted under a bed and strummed. That would be a great way to go to sleep, for sure. Deep, rich resonant tones. 

The metal pod things are steel harps, made by a company in Switzerland. Such a sound, that decayed very slowly. Deep, full, perfectly tuned. I'd love to hear more of them. We bought all four of Luc's CDs, and wished there were more. 

Here is part of Luc's last piece, where he moved all around the stage playing all the instruments. The decay in the sound was slow enough that he could leave one and start playing another and create a chord. It was like nothing I've ever heard before.

I gave Luc the name of Swallow Hill, and of Kolacny Music in Denver. He'd be perfect for a Swallow Hill concert, or for something that the Kolacnys, with their store being a harp center, could arrange. 

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It was a pretty terrific first day in Bruges.

12/23/14.1 Bruges, Day 1

We had been seeing signs for "Ice Magic: the Land of the Hobs" on posters, in train stations, flyers. Apparently each year ice scuptors from all over the world meet in Bruges and create an experience with a different theme. This year, it was inspired by JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. Hob stories existed long before Tolkien, but have the same sorts of characters. These figures, however, owe more to the Peter Jackson movies than the old tales. 

The exhibit was right outside the Bruge train station. We were cold and tired, but we decided to delay getting to our hotel, and go through the Land of the Hobs, having never seen anything like it before. There was no line, but there were stanchions set up that made it look as if they had to take care of long lines at other times, so we just went for it. They let us put our luggate in a corner, very nice of them. 

The sculptures were wonderful! The pictures don't do them justice, as it's hard to photograph ice, but I'll try. 

The Wizard. Looks a lot like Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings movies, no?

A hobbit, feeding hens. I love the frosted trees in the background. They really did try to make it seem like a magical setting. They covered up lights with ice cases with snow on top so you couldn't see the light, for instance. Also, the lights kept changing color. 

A dragon head! His tail is about 30' long and winds through a castle. Look at those teeth, isn't he wonderful?

Fighting dwarves, one standing and one coming through the ice wall.

This one is Legolas, shooting his bow. It was so cold in there that I can't imagine anything melting, but you can see that his arrow has slumped some. Not the bow though. Cool figure, with lots of action in it. 

A elf, not sure who it's supposed to be. But the detail on his tunic is beautiful!

The whole exhibit experience was magical, so fun. And bloody cold. Raining and cold outside, dry and really cold inside. But wonderful, with a great treat waiting at the end--a fabulous pub! I would love to have these trees in my dining room. 

Afterward, we went to the taxi stand and were whisked away to the Hotel Koffiebuntje.

12/20/14.1 Brussels, Day 2

This is the lobby of the Hotel Mozart. The entire place looks like this, only in different color combinations. But the art is mostly Renaissance-style. It's a very confusing place. The stairs wind everywhere, there is an elevator that holds one person and one bag, and the tiled stairwells wind around like the turret of a medieval fortress. The housekeeping staff uses Ikea bags to tote their stuff around, because there would be no way they could use a regular cart. The breakfast room is in between floors, kind of like platform 9 3/4 in the Harry Potter books. The breakfast was fabulous--wonderful bread, croissant, cheese, and some of the best coffee we've ever tasted. We asked what kind it was, and it's Arabic. Flavorful, and brewed strong, yum. 

We never found out why on earth the place is called Hotel Mozart instead of Hotel Morocco or somesuch, but at least there is a picture of Mozart in one of the lobby rooms. 

Planning session in our room, which is very bright orange and gold. With a portrait of a Dutch woman on the wall. The room was pretty clean, and the wardrobe was nice to have. There was also decent internet, and an inlaid desk (not Moroccan) to work on. 

Brussels is home to the Smurfs! I had no idea, nor do I know what character this might be, sorry. The Belgians have a unique sense of humor. Belgium is also big into comic books. We saw comic book shops but didn't go into any of them. We did visit waffle shops and chocolate shops, and drank a good bit of dark beer. Leffe is our current favorite. 

And another example of the Belgian sense of humor--in the Spanish Plaza there is this grouping of Man of La Mancha and Sancho--note the red noses on them both. I was struck by how tired the horse looks, ears and head down, legs bent, plodding as if he can hardly wait til this journey is over. While Sancho's mule's ears are up and seems to be striding along with enthusiasm. I loved this sculpture, it made me smile. 

Next--the Museum of Musical Instruments!