Brugge

Yay for Crystal!  She got the right answer.  It was Prince Henry from the movie "Ever After"!  (I picked up your chocolates and will bring them home to your mother.  I'm not sure how else to get them to you.)  I'll bring some to you too, Karen!!  

 Whenever I heard the word 'Belgium',  that phrase of Prince Henry's would come to my mind.  While that will probably still happen in the future I will have a lot of other images come to my mind as well!!  

Here are a few of them.......

When we first arrived in Brugge (rhymes with rouge but the french pronounce it BRUGE-eh) I wanted to take a boat tour right off to see the sights of the Old Town.  I took many pictures because it was all so beautiful!  To me Brugge is a mixture of Prague, Venice, and Saltzburg all rolled into one.  I loved the architecture, the canals, the cobblestone streets, the buildings, and the churches with the tall steeples.  Everywhere I looked was medieval history in all it's splendor! After our boat tour we perused a few shops and decided to wait to do our shopping until the end of the day.  That was almost a mistake because we nearly ran out of time.  The shops were starting to close by the time we were finishing up our sightseeing.

Rick and I in the main square. 

I love the look of this old building.

We went to the Church of Our Lady to see this marble statue of the Madonna by Michaelangelo.

It is one of the few statues of his outside of Italy.  It was sculpted in 1505.

The four of us outside of the Church of our Lady.

Ruth and I separated from the men for a little while and went to the church to see the statue of the Madonna but somehow we got turned around and ended up in a different church.  Well, the story goes that we were supposed to follow the street signs and the map to get there.  It sounds easy enough, right?  There was a really pretty square just ahead on our walk and we could see the church steeple so we thought we could take a different route through this pretty square.  The streets here are curvy so that threw us off without knowing it:(  We were supposed to meet the guys at the Church of our Lady but we ended up at Our Savior's Church instead.  While it was lovely to look at we didn't find the Madonna sculpture.  After a while the guys called wondering where in the world we were.  Brad had to come get us because we were all turned around:)  I love to read maps and I knew where I was.  I guess I just didn't know where the right church was:)

Me with the canal behind me.  It was interesting to learn on our boat tour that one of the canals leads all the way back to Ghent.  The canals used to lead to the ocean and Brugge used to be a "port town" but not anymore.

Of course, Rick had to get a Belgian Waffle.  

I took a bite and the chocolate on it was heavenly!!

Toward the end of the day we took a carriage ride with Brad and Ruth.  

I loved the clip clop of the horses hooves on the cobblestone.

A view of a boat from the street.

Did I mention chocolate shops??  They are EVERYWHERE!   

There is no shortage of that stuff here in Brugge.  

I can't believe that I didn't take any pictures of the lace shops:(  That is one of the artisan crafts for this area.  (Flemish)  

Along with our chocolates we bought a small lace tablecloth to go on our Lazy Susan on the kitchen table.  We also purchased a tapestry to hang in our dining room. 

Here is the Belfry that Rick climbed to get a view of the city.  I would have loved to do this but 322 steps??  I think I would have done okay going up but I'm afraid my horrible Hafen knees would have been a problem coming down!  He got up there just as the chimes started.  He said it was like the inside of a gigantic music box with a rolling drum and pins for the notes.  He went up another flight and he was right at the bells.  He loved it!!  It was really loud!

Brugge was a wonderful city to be in.  It met and even exceeded my expectations.   

I hope to never forget this wonderful place!