Brugge: Day 2

After the excellent breakfast I wrote briefly about in my first post on Brugge, it didn't take me long on day two to discover that a light but steady rain was falling. So I decided that this would a good morning to check out the museums. Once again the position of my hotel was excellent for this. Turning right out of the hotel and making an almost immediate left, I walked down that road for maybe five to seven minutes when I spotted several museums that I had read about.

Entrance to the Groeninge Museum

One quick note on size: While there are areas out of the center that Dottore Gianni  wants to see, such as Minnewater and the Begujnhof to the south, and the windmills to the north, most of the city is available to less eager walkers with great ease. Dottore Gianni always researches well before he tours cities he's not seen before, but even he was surprised by how close together most of the sites are as he moved from one point of interest to the next.


And one quick caveat: Tourists beware! Or at least be Aware of the cobblestones, which are almost everywhere, charming to see but sometimes tricky to traverse. Bicyclists in Brugge seem not to mind this, but it would seem to me that any ride is accompanied by a constant series of very light bumps. Dottore Gianni is more walker than cyclist, but walkers too must take care not to trip on the stones, The good doctor has trod many cobbled streets in Europe, and even he managed to get tripped up several times. After long periods trodding these stones a toll can be taken on one's feet as well.

Colorful buildings on the Markt Square

So! I knew that I wanted to see three museums in particular: the Hans Memling museum, the Groeninge Museum for its Flemish "primitives" such as Memling in Sint-Jan, Jan van Eyck and others (though their work is anything but primitive), and the Gruuthuse Museum, primarily for its guillotine! I ended up seeing four, and spent a very pleasant morning doing so. 

Entrance to the Memling Museum

I started with the Memling, housed in St John's Jospital (thus Sint-Jan) for which he painted several works. The setting is excellent, and while there are only a few of Memling's own works they are worth their weight and probably then some in gold. But there is also a history of the hospital in paintings, sculptures and artifacts as well. If you don't know Memling's work you should, but if you have friends and/or family that sends religious Christmas cards you'll have seen his work, as angels, madonnas and child paintings are trimmed to work well for season's greetings. 


I next headed off in search of the small but famed art museum that houses more Memlings, along with Van Eycks, Van der Goes etc, the Groeninge Museum. But I walked into the wrong museum! One can be forgiven for this, and Dottore Gianni should be forgiven anything, as there are quite a few museums in the area. The good news is that this museum, the Arentshuis, not only houses an excellent exhibition on Frank Brangwyn, a British painter born in Bruges who was a member of the Munich Secession movement and who founded the Vienna Secession movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I hadn't known his work, and I was lucky to stumble upon it. Even more luckily, when I paid for this museum I was told that I'd also get to see the Groeninge on the same ticket. Most luckily, I visited on the day after my 65th birthday and got a reduced price! So you see there IS something good about turning 65 after all!


Just after I viewed the lovely surprise at Arentshuis I walked the very few steps to the Groeninge. After the dazzling first three rooms, in that museum, featuring work from all of the above and more, including a great Hieronymous Bosch painting of the Last Judgement -- a surrealist centuries before that 20th century avant-garde movement was born -- I must admit to disappointment, as several rooms were closed off because a special exhibit just closed was being removed. The only other room I really wanted to see was, speaking of surrealists, the surrealist room, which houses work by Rene Magritte among others. But not for me, not today. Ah well, you can't have it all, right?


And it was on to an interesting if eclectic museum composed of odds an ends from the history of Brugge, the Gruuthaus. I found a good bit of the collection fairly uninteresting, but I wanted to see this one because among the miscellany is a guillotine! 

La Guillotine!

Not that I'm all that interested in bloody instruments of death, but the course that I am teaching at ICLC is on performing arts and the French Revolution. So it was fascinating to see one of these up close. This particular guillotine was purchased in 1796, only a short time after the Reign of Terror had ended, and its first use in Brugge was in October of that same year, to put a murdere to death, It remained in use until the late 19th century -- the last use in France was in the early 20th century, as not every schoolboy knows.  It was smaller than I'd imagined a guillotine would be, particularly when you look at drawings of guillotines in the Place de la Concorde during the height of the Revolution -- of course the "place" was not one of "concorde" in the Reign of Terror, and in fact was re-named from the Place Louis XV, for whom it was originally constructed, to the Place de la Revolution during the Revolution, and quickly re-named the Place de la Concorde after the blood-bath was finished.


I had planned on three museums, got four for the same reasonable price, even got a compliment from the woman who sold me the two=for-pne card. She told me I did not look 65 at all. Flattering!


After all that museum-hopping I decided to relaz at a place called Petit Maxim's, 

recommended by the lovely receptionist at the hotel, I dould not refuse, and enjoyed a tall glass of Leffe, another Belgian beer that more of you may have heard of, as I think I've seen the export version in the U.S.  Liked it nearly as much as Brugse Zot! Then back to the hotel for the afternoon, to finish writing day one of my blog, and also to have a nap. I had walked a good bit, including what I call "museum amble," not as good for you as a walking briskly, and I was pooped!

At about 4 pm I noticed a phenomen: the sun had come out! Well, in and out, but it was enough to get me back outside for a walk around some of the same places I'd seen on the first day, and to discover a few more. It was already almost sundown, so the brightness had gone out of the sky, but it was a mostly blue sky, and that was a  pleasant change from the day before and earlier in the same day.

The Provincial Court in Market Square
note the blue sky

I walked for about two hours in all, making several discoveries, including, once again by accident, the city's main theatre, the Stadsschouwburg. It's a gigantic building, and I came upon it from the rear, only realizing what I found as I started seeing bills for different plays, operas, touring companies along its side. I know I'm about to retire but a theatre historian always delights when he comes across as theatre he's not yet seen. At least this one does.

The Stadsschouwburg

Then I began to think about supper. Confession: I find it very difficult to decide on where I want to eat, and wandered back and forth among restaurants I'd already considered until I drove myself nearly mad. 

Cambrinus!
The building dates
from 1699

So I walked into a neighborhood nearby I'd seen only once, very close to the Burg, and stopped in at a bar famous for its own beer, and also for having over 400 different kinds of beer on offer! It's called Cambrinus, for a man who is called the King of Beer -- "long before Bud," quips the historical note in the gigantic menu (lots of food of course, but it takes many pages to list and describe and note the alcohol content of 400 beers), and who is thought to have invented the drink -- fact or fiction? Who cares? It's a great place, determinedly touristy, yet with a lot of locals too, one boisterous group playing cards energetically and boisterously. 


With so many beers to choose from I decided on the house brew: Cambrinus! It comes in light and dark, and I had a glass of both, one before the main course, one with it, and both are delicious, though I favored the light version of this brew, found the dark not so interesting, and not nearly as interesting as the Brugse Zot.  I did well with the beer, but decided on what turned out to be wretched excess as well as repetitive with the food, I thought I'd try one of the other tres Belgian recipes -- the rabbit stew, or the fish stew -- instead I saw a three-course meal on offer, called the choice of the brewers: to start, Trappist Cheese Croquettes -- wonderful (though my cholesterol pills would not agree) but a meal in themselves. The main course: Carbonnade Flamande again. I'm glad I did in a way, as this was even tastier than the one I'd had the night before, and it came with what I thought was an odd choice at first, apple sauce -- hot apple sauce with chunks of apples as well as sauce in it -- which turned out to be a great accompaniment. But of course it also came with Belgian fries! I was pretty much done for by this point, not to mention tipsy, and then the dessert came -- a creme brulee, but not just any creme brulee. This one was flavored slightly with Gambrinus beer, and had an assortment of fruit atop it -- heaven!

Brugge at night, snapped by a tipsy Jack

But I had stuffed myself to the point of unpleasantness. I wobbled home, vowing that I would eat a light breakfast the next morning (today), however I broke my vow. To find out more, read the nest post!