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Home Page > Travelogues > Belgium > Bruges > East Bruges
Other Chapters in the
Bruges
section:
This final chapter on Bruges covers parts of the city less traveled by tourists.
In fact, parts of it seemed rather abandoned, perhaps left out of
This chapter begins in the southern end, not too far away from the Burg. The first photograph shows the Gruuthusemuseum, the brownish building at left. This was originally a manor but now an art museum. It was located just north of the Walplein and led me back toward the Burg, but I would move eastward toward the canals.
The second photograph was one of my favorite canal shots. I believe it was
from an interesection of the canals facing the Guildhouse of the Tanners.
Nume
There were a number of monuments I passed as I circled to the north. There
was the Bruges City Theater, very simple in comparison to theaters in other
cities. It was made of red brick, and was small and square with gray
columns. Next was Vaneyckplein, a a square at the end with a statue of Van
Eyck in the center. Nearby was the Old Customs House and Sint Annarei
Church. This brought me to a residential zone along one of the wider
canals with full roads on both sides. It reminded me a lot of the canals
in Amsterdam that were bounded by narrow cobblestone roads available for car
traffic, but only a compact could traverse it reliably.
I reached Carmerstraat and headed east. Immediately, the character of the
city changed from its renovated and fresh character to purely 'old'.
Despite the thousands decended on the town, there was literally no one with me
on the road although the street was loaded with parked cars. The buildings
were umkempt and the bricks were very faded. A particularly intriguing
structure was the old English convent, a massive round structure that at the
time was badly in need of a facelift. That may have changed since 2002,
which I would hope as it looked like it was originally a gorgeous building.
But as I neared the eastern wall, the scenery regained its beauty as grassy
areas appeared and the bricks were back to their original red color. At
the end of Carmerstraat was the scene in the third photograph, that of the Saint
Sebastian Archers' Guild. This guild house now serves as a museum of royal
art. The surrounding buildings looked like upper-scale residences or
restaurants and establishments that cate The eastern wall was one of the most beautiful parts of Bruges, although there wasn't any wall left. As the fourth photograph showed, this was a wide open grassy park bounded by a main road and the exterior canal that served as the city's moat. Scattered along the eastern wall was a series of windmills built on earthen mounts, separated at two or three hundred-meter intervals. The windmills were not in service when I was there, although I doubted they were serviceable -- I believed they were strictly decorative. They were also clearly recently rebuilt. I followed the walking path to the south for a stretch, then moved back westward.
This area was very residential and again a different character. For the
first time, I saw long stretches of tiny single-family residences painted white.
And I meant tiny, probably
There were a few small monuments and points of interest in the area. The fifth photograph shows the Jerusalem Kerk, a tiny brick church in the middle of this residential district. Indications were that it was still in use. Next to it, off the right of the photo, was a string of buildings that appeared to be an old monastery or something like that, although I saw no specific reference to it in the Bruges tourist information. Only a block away was an old Orthodox Church, also very small and nestled within a residential neighborhood. From there, I returned to the canals and back to the Center Market. Getting off the beaten path was always a goal of mine whenever I had plenty of time to visit someplace in depth. I enjoyed this part of my journey because it gave me a truer glimpse of some of Bruges' history, and to get away from the tourists for a while. It also showed me that it wasn't only the touristy areas of Bruges that were kept clean, all of the city was clean ... and worth checking out.
Other Chapters in the
Bruges
section:
Trip Taken 16-17 March 2002 -- Last Updated 08 April 2006 -- (C) 2002, 2006 Tom Galvin. The Bruges City Homepage used for fact checking in 2006. |
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the
city's revitalization in preparation for the tourist industry. While it
includes several very busy blocks just east and south of the
rous
tour boats passed from the left of the photograph across my front along the edge
of the canal then following the structures along the right wall. One of
those tour boats is just entering from the right of the photograph. The
white building in the center, which appeared to be a hotel, was one of the few
buildings that seemed almost out of place compared to the scene.
The side streets were very narrow, almost like a maze with old-time
establishments scattered about. One that I took a picture of was a place
called the Cafe Vlissinghe, a simple old house converted into a cafe.
red
to the tourist scene.
just
a couple hundred square meters apiece, but they were occupied and the residents
were out and about conducting their routine. There were other streets that
maintained renovated and modernized row houses painted bright white, although I
don't think they were enlarged. I wondered how much houses there would go
for.
