In Bruges

We are "in Bruges". Or, as Colin Farrell's character said in the movie, we are in "f****ing Bruges." But we could not disagree with him more. This is a beautiful and charming town. Much like Obidos, every turn you make you find another interesting detail on a building, or street sculpture, or plants/flowers. People ride bikes everywhere, the bell/clock tower sings with a different melody each time. It is built on canals, so it is a "little Venice".

It has been so interesting on this trip that each stop we have made has presented completely different architecture with different building materials. Here the buildings are almost all brick and have this "step up" roof line. We did take a boat trip on the canals, and then walked the same streets to get the different vantage points.

The arched bridges over the canals were often very low, and we had to bend over as we passed through.

I need to read about this sculpture -I don't think that it represents the need to lean over as you pass under bridges. I do think that in Europe they are much less prudish about their art - lots of sensual poses.

There is Belgian chocolate everywhere. Of course, that does not matter to me, but the window displays are fun to look at. Chocolate in the shape of asparagus..

We went through this covent museumand then through a church that had one of the few Michaelangelo sculptures outside of Italy

Here you can see the view of the famous clock tower featured in the movie In Bruges - this was the view from our hotel room window at 10:40 p.m. - you can see how light it still is outside. This morning (Saturday) we will climb to the top
Just to catch you up on our Thursday, we spent hours in the Louvre, seeing much more than our our visit in 1990. Apparently you could walk the Louvre 24-7 for 2 months, spending just a few seconds at each piece and finally see the whole thing, so we still have a long way to go! We also went to the newly refurbished, and a museum for the first time, Petite Palais. The exhibit was French history - furniture, art, sculpture, all displayed in a gorgeous building and garden.


And LOTS more walking, walking walking.
By the end of the trip my feet will look like this,,.

Okay, off to climb the clock tower. Our plan today (Saturday) is to spend the day in Antwerpen as long as the "Milk" demonstrations (the milk farmers VS the government) don't disrupt our plans, and then head back to Paris,