Day trip to Bruges
You can have the opportunity to make a day trip to Bruges if you are several days in Brussels.
Bruges is the most beautiful city I have ever seen until today. I’m absolutely sure of that. It is like a dream, like living a tale of another time; a walk direct to the past, to a Medium Age drenched by the nostalgia and by the beautiful memories of history that only in books we have been able to read.
We will be sublimated by Bruges with every corner, with each smell, with each color, with each flavor. Smells of wet stone, pale colors of remote stories, flavors of medieval tradition. And then you will have a visual impact as few times can be taken, since the first time you arrive here. Because the entrance to the city, the most famous of all entrances, is an idyllic landscape like its name: The Lake of Love, the Minnewater, a haven of peace and tranquillity that hides to the city after its stone walls.
More informatión: Minnewater Lake in Bruges
The next point of the day was the Beginhof, founded in the year 1245 by the Countess of Flanders, dedicated to the rest of the soul. Its deadly silence collides with the joy of the most commercial street of the city: the Sint-Katelijn Straat where are a good number of all the tourist shops of Bruges and where you can buy the best Belgian chocolate.
Just at the end of the street we find the church of Our Lady, on the corner with calle Dijvers. Is the popular Vrouwekerk, where is located the Virgin with the Child, attributed to Miguel Angel. This corner, as well as the street Dijvers, forms one of the most beautiful and photographic places from the historical city center of Bruges, because throughout the street you can see work to the painters and sellers of chocolate in front of the canal, between the channels and the characteristic stone walls of these almost medieval cities. At this point you must take the cameras and begin to take photos, which will surely become some of the most beautiful ones of your trip to Belgium.
And so, from that small corner you can begin the walking by this street, between trees and stone bridges crossing the channel, between emblazoned stone houses and paintings that you admire because of the ability of some artists to shape with their pencils in a drawing to the poetry of the nostalgic dreams, the melancholic air and tired that Bruges possesses. Then you breathe the smell in the air, you close your eyes and hear the whisper of the quite water when a boat passes near…
We arrived to the Markt, the heart of Bruges. Its main artery, the center of the city, where they are concentrated so many centuries of history. The Tower of the Hallen, of the year 1248, is the emblem of the city; its most photographed stamp. Covering another of the sides, the Provincial Palace of the XIX century and just to the opposite side of the tower are the flemish houses that were constructed between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Just through a little street, the Braidelstraat, you will arrive to the second most important square of the city: the Burg with the Palace of Justice and the Town Hall of the XV century, in gothic style, and at the same time, the oldest one of the whole of Belgium. In that place you will be able to visit too the Basilica of the Holy Blood.
Under the Palace of the Chancery, in this same square, there is a vaulted arch that leads us to the street of the Blind Ass. Then you can take a brief walk through typical flemish streets since where you, eventually, will back to the street Dijvers. The famous Green shore or Gronerei have the largest amount of typical restaurants of Bruges, where you can taste the famous mussels and chips while you enjoy with the views of the silhouette of the entire historic center of the city. It is from this corner of Bruges where you get the classic picture of Bruges with the channels and the tower are of substance which you can see below.
