Belgium - Bruges

So surprised at how much I liked Bruges. I thought it was going to be small. I thought it was going to be boring. I was wrong about that, I was wrong about a lot of things…yes, Legends of the Fall, but you have no soul if you don’t like that movie.

The center area is the “Markt”, guess what that means. It is a huge square that could rival any square in Europe. Tons of patios, tons of old as shit stuff. Perhaps the only downside is this gigantic modern glass sculpture in the center of the square, which I thought was completely out of place. In fact the entire town is doing some modern art expose which I kind of hated. Not only do I hate modern art but come on man, I’m here for medieval. I’m here to prove that Busch Gardens isn’t the only place in Europe you need to go (yeah, Williamsburg VA). Give me some old topped with some old as shit.

The Markt has a centerpiece, the Belfort, which is basically a giant tower with bells and chimes and shit. You can climb to the top and have a wonderful view. You can climb to the top if you aren’t afraid of heights, small spaces, heart attacks, or anything else associated with a steep as hell, old as hell staircase that hardly allows two people to go by. It’s so steep that you can’t see 5 feet in front of you. It’s so steep that if you are not with people you will wonder if those sneaky Belgians have actually devised this plan to trap you in their wily maze. You will wonder if you will like your new life as a slave butter churner, not ideal, though I hear you get a bump after the 5th year. Anyway, I walked up. I thought I was going to die. The way down may have been worse when the stragglers had to get by and I literally had to hang from the rope or balance on a ledge while they walked directly under me. Very interesting stuff, but I definitely didn’t think my parents could do it. It’s the real deal.

Outside of the Markt there is an extremely cool basilica in the “Burg” area, which has almost a hidden door and it’s totally free. The two other tall buildings (besides the Belfort) are both cathedrals. We went in one that had monks chanting..I mean how cool is that. South of the Markt and the cathedrals is a nice walk along canals and such, but it gets fairly boring fairly quickly.

There is chocolate everywhere and there are waffles everywhere. There are musssels for lunch and dinner. There are beers that you have never heard of and smiles all around. The people are amazing, the drinking is non stop, and the place is beautiful, what else do you want. And I would add, how the hell can you not like a culture with so many candy stores. It’s like Willy Wonka took a rainbow shit. It’s wonderful.

Notes to self:

-We did go to this cool restaurant our last night, Cafedraal. Right in the heart of the city, but it had some style man, and great service. Built inside a medieval cathedral, they mixed modern in so well I was pretty damn impressed.
-The train station is not near where you want to be, definitely a cab situation with all of those cobblestones in your future. Our hotel was right next to the Markt and I thought the location was perfect.

Hotel Dukes’ Palace - Sep 2015, Nov 2021

This is really a fantastic hotel. I had many many problems with it, but I am a snob and I should ignore most of them.
They call it the only 5 star hotel in Bruges. I don’t know if that’s true, but it is a palace. I usually don’t go for regal but I was very happy here. The rooms were modern, and the main areas were classic. It was actually nice to have both in a place like Bruges. The location is hard to beat, maybe 2 blocks from the Markt (but the main street outside of the hotel was completely dug up and under construction, wasn’t too big a deal but it’ll be much better when it’s done). This has been completed now of course.

We ate at the restaurant, and though they extremely limit the tables to artificially create demand (we actually had a nice conversation about this and confirmed it with the manager), we did still have a good time. They could of sat us much sooner (since he “created” a table for us from one of the so called bar only tables), so I retain a little bitterness.
The bar was kind of nice with good service and nice accouterments. Plus, you could sit all over the lobby in these plush sections and they would serve you. If the weather had been better, we would’ve sat on their patio often.

My room was on the 1st floor (2nd floor for us americans) which was perfect because you aren’t really going to get a view from any room (the buildings are not tall enough), and I could walk up and down the main stairs right to my door.
The bathroom was killer. A big tub with a giant window facing the bedroom…very sexy if you want it to be. It also had a big standup glass walled shower and a very mod vanity area. I was surprised. Deluxe rooms are far larger than superior rooms, not a small bump.
The room itself had a nice bed and a desk and all of the amenities except pay per view, but the TV was good. The mini bar was nice and had those half wine bottles for 6 euros…12 easy in the US. The room service was wonky and you had to order it from the downstairs bar but they did say it was 24 hours (I did not test this).

The spa was kind of the jam. Unmanned, which I like because that makes it unisex and you can do what you want. I was a little weirded out that the sauna was like right when you walked in and had a giant glass front, meaning everyone that walked in was looking at you no matter what. But they also had a shower room, a nice and dark and steamy hammam, and weird upright tanning beds in this upstairs loft area. That area also housed a salt wall that I honestly couldn’t figure out. I mean, what’s a salt wall? The gym was small but modern and not bad.

The breakfast buffet was actually pretty good at 18 euros (now 28 euros). Hot stuff and cold stuff and free champagne…which is really all you need to say.

The internet…ohhhh the internet. You jerks! It was free, but it was terr-ee-blay. I mean awful. It made you log in ten thousand times and even when you did it didn’t work great. I had to walk to the end of the hall just to get my laptop to work. I mean, for this caliber a hotel, they need booster signals in every corner of that shit. Fail.

Notes

-Fix, the fucking, internet. It was much better the second time :)
-Deluxe rooms were very large compared to superior rooms.