The previous post includes some of the pictures from Emma Kay's and my morning adventures, but here are some more. We spent an hour or two in the Belfort, which was incredibly fun! Carillons are so freaking cool.
It's impossible to capture how the whole system works, but here you can see some of the bells being struck by the carillonneur, seen (sort of) playing below:
The part of the carillon you play is like an organ, but you play with fists rather than fingers. And your feet are working, too.
The views were quite beautiful--we really lucked out with the weather!
270 km. from my sweetheart 😔😉
When the carillonneur isn't playing--which is most of the time--the quarter hours are played by this big rotating drum (estimated at nine tons!!) that has different pins on it that trigger the bells. The music is changed every two years... understandable that they wait that long because it must be an incredible amount of work. Again, so big and in such a small space that it was hard to capture, but we got to watch one in action in the Ghent Belfort, so stay tuned! #nerdalert
When I could finally drag myself out of the Belfort, we continued around town:
We went into the Groeninge Museum which features early Flemish art, or the Flemish primitives. Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) was an early adapter of oil paint, and a couple of his works caught my eye, like this one of his wife:
It is important as a portrait of a regular person, rather than Jesus, Mary, or some duke or king--the advent of humanism.
After lunch we meandered into the Church of Our Lady to see the Michelangelo. Check out the hiiiiiigh brick ceiling!
These are the tombs of Mary of Burgundy and her father, Charles the Bold, who were the last local rulers of Bruges in the late fifteenth century, before it got swallowed up in the Hapsburg empire.
I don't recall seeing tomb paintings like these before--we saw them in several churches in Belgium. An angel swings an incense burner to bless the dead person inside. Fourteenth-century, I think.
Took us a hot minute, but we found Michelangelo's Madonna. He worked on it in 1504 while taking a break from working on the David.
We continued our sight-seeing blitz at St. John's Hospital, built in the 12th century and where pilgrims to Bruges were cared for in their last days. There were displays about medieval medicine, but... no thanks. St. John's also houses some important works by Hans Memling (1430-1494). He made a bundle doing portraits of wealthy businessmen and other visitors to bustling Bruges.
I thought this diptych was pretty neat: Memling uses 3-D techniques borrowed from the Italians to put Martin van Nieuwenhove and Mary and Jesus in the same room. You can't tell from the photo, but there's a mirror over Mary's shoulder that proves they're sitting together. Pretty cool!
Next up was a break for a canal tour!
I didn't get many good pictures but it was fun to be on the water--a really nice change of pace. After that it was finally time to have a Belgian waffle! Rick recommended the huge waffle's at Lizzie's and boy was he right.
Oh my god. And I had a masala chai that complimented it so well. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Emma Kay got chocolate sauce and some ice cream and oh holy moly. Best dinner ever.
That evening we took another of Rick's guided walks because we planned to bike it the next day and were just intimidated enough by the combination of cobblestones, other bikers, tourists, and cars that we figured walking it first wouldn't hurt.
I took a series of door pictures that I might put on instagram one of these days (@sara.e.mcclure), and we saw a couple of other neat things. One was this whale sculpture made entirely out of plastic found in the Pacific Ocean:
It was beautiful and really sad--an important reminder about the incredible amount of different types of plastic that we use and use and use and use...
The goal of the end of our walk was a windmill! I didn't tell Emma Kay about it because I knew how much she was looking forward to seeing a windmill... the best part of playing tour guide is being able to surprise someone with something I know they'll enjoy. :)
St. Janshuys Windmill (1770)
When walking to the second windmill we noticed a drawbridge going up to make way for a looooong barge going through the system of locks at this canal. When down, the drawbridge lets cars pass through the medieval Kruis Gate to Bruges. So fun!
Completely worn out by this point, we made our way back to the hotel where I proceeded to have a nearly sleepless night, womp womp. But we soldiered on!
We got our bikes without incident and made our way back out to St. Janshuys windmill. It was open so we climbed up and went inside for a look at all the gears that ground grain for bakers in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Bruges.
It was a steep climb! And yet another gorgeous day--we really lucked out! As we pedaled on along the moat, we saw more windmills:
Eventually we crossed the moat (after having to wait about fifteen minutes for a barge that crossed under the drawbridge and then had to wait for the lock to fill so it could move on) and headed north toward Damme. It was such a delightful ride--almost completely flat, about half of it in total shade, and between farmers' fields and the canal.
We decided not to take the time to go into Damme but it looked inviting!
Ugh Belgium, you're just so cute. And with a couple more cute views of adorable Bruges, we returned our bikes, bought some beer for my brother, and made our way to the train station and to Ghent...
Wow!! How cool would it be to live there?! --Miranda
ReplyDeleteRight?! The tourists would probably be annoying, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as other places. Loved it!
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