How come Belgians aren’t fat?
Bruges, Belgium’s medieval jewel, “Venice of the North”, is home to a thousand chocolate shops, too many famous artists to mention and Wally de Backer, better known as the pop star, er, Gotye. (no, nor have I). Here, when you are tired of chocolate, you eat chips, mayo, waffles, cream, egg nog (Advocaat), drink copious amounts of Trappist Beer (around 6-14% alcohol) or a bewildering variety of locally made Gins, Vodkas and weirder spirits.
We stayed in The Dukes’ Palace, super-central, flawless 5* Gaff. Actually, most of the multiple hotels and BnBs are super-central; you can walk from one side of town to the other in about half an hour.
Bruges is small, pretty, ancient, friendly, free of crime, with confusingly planned cobbled streets connecting the many churches and squares all of which are delicately lit at night.
Art: we stood in awe before Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgement, a kind of Dali-esque depiction of both Heaven and Hell and we admired one of the finest collections of Bruge’s own welshman Frank Brangwyn. God: We genuflected before the Blood of Christ himself in the Basilica. Food: we ate at Patrick Devos (fabulous and expensive) and Poules Moules (fun and cheap) and drank Brugse Zot beer (6%) with three brothers from Leeds whilst watching Scotland beat Wales at rugby in Delaney’s Irish Bar.
It’s hard to find fault with this lovely little town only 3 hours away by Eurostar (via Brussels). But like the taxi driver said, watch out for cyclists and above all the horse-drawn carriages who could all use an visit to driving school.
See also Rome in 60 seconds, Barcelona in 60 seconds, Cyprus in 60 seconds and Mallorca in 60 seconds
The only way is up 