Monday, April 30, 2012

Since we only have a few weeks left here, we decided we wanted to travel somewhere in Belgium so we got up on Sat and took a last minute trip to Brugge. Travelling to Brugge was like travelling to another country due to the fact that it's located in the Dutch part of Belgium and therefore everything is in Dutch, which we didn't know any. But it was a good experience to venture to a different part of Belgium and learn about the other part of the Belgian Culture.

Upon googleling (is that a word???) Brugge, I learnt a couple of things about the history of Brugge. I will share these facts with you =)

  • The city centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
  • Due to it's canals, it is sometimes referred to as "The Venice of the North"
  • It's port is very busy and was at one time considered the chief commercial city of the world due to all the business it brought in
  • It is known for still having it's medieval architecture in place. 
I had not idea it was so full of history so I was excited to go!

Before leaving my roommate gave me one key piece of advice that struck me a little: she said that it would be better for us to talk English instead of French. I knew there was a lot of tension between both sides of the country but I didn't think it was this bad. I took her advice and although I was so sad to not be able to practice my French, I only spoke English. 

Once there we saw a lot of beautiful buildings but to be quite frankly Brugge is kind of boring. Once you get past the architecture, there is not much to do there. We spent about 2 hours there before we got bored and went back home. 

Anyhow, here's a few pictures from Brugge


Town Centre. There was a fair that day but since it was raining so not a lot of people were around
Town Centre

Canal