The Alternative Travel Guide: Bruges

I’ll admit up front that the very concept of this blog series is fundamentally flawed. I travel so infrequently that writing travel guides makes about as much sense as a video game critic only reviewing top Xbox exclusives. Many thumbs will be twiddled.

But I feel obliged to share my travel experiences; to provide an alternative guide to some of the most popular and maybe some of the most unremarkable places in the world. Rather than regurgitating the same spiel about must-see attractions that the internet is stuffed with, I’ll offer frank insights on aspects that are rarely covered.

And so we start with Bruges.

Immortalised in the dark comedy movie ‘In Bruges’, and as far as I can tell of little historical significance prior to this cult film, Bruges is best described as a place full of old buildings and shops trying to flog tourists sickly waffles and overpriced chocolates.

Reaching the famous city by train from Brussels is a piece of cake provided you can look up trains on your phone. If you can’t, then welcome to the foreign railway lottery! If you do make it on to the correct train, you may discover to your glee that it’s an impressive double-decker thing. Savour this moment, traveller, as it will be one of the highlights of your trip.

Emerging from Bruges station and following everyone else towards the town centre, as of March 2018 the first things you’ll see are the busy main road and what was presumably once a park being torn up by diggers. But let’s not get carried away with first impressions. At least all of those cars won’t plague the centre of Bruges, right?

Wrong. As my long-suffering wife will attest, I remarked on several occasions how much more pleasant Bruges would be if cars weren’t allowed to stream into it like losers into department stores on Black Friday. They should pedestrianize the place. Sod the locals: they rely on tourism, so they’ll have to suck it up. I saw one guy delivering loaves of fresh bread on a bicycle. That’s the sort of image Bruges needs to nurture.

That said, there are too many bicycles in Bruges. A number of times we were walking along a cobbled street only to be lurched out of our pleasant amble by a cyclist pinging his bell with the fury of a guest at Fawlty Towers’ front desk.

Speaking of Fawlty Towers, the man who (presumably) owns the hotel/bar on the edge of Minnewater Lake makes John Cleese’s fictional hotel owner seem positively courteous in comparison. Perched in an idyllic spot in the peaceful park, overlooking the tranquil water, you’d expect the owner to be only too glad to welcome punters in. Not so. We managed to secure two drinks each with nothing more than a derisive harrumph when we asked if we could sit outside, but others weren’t so lucky.

Proof we secured drinks at “Fawlty Towers!”

When the heavens opened, one poncho-wearing group seemed to be turned away. One can only presume they were deemed too soggy to grace the establishment. Another British pair cheekily tried to order one drink between them, clearly just sheltering from the rain, but were refused service. In short, I highly recommend taking the see-if-you-can-be-served challenge. It’s fantastic entertainment, and you may even get a drink or two as a prize.

On the subject of beer: wow. The Belgians don’t mess around, do they? I imagine there’s a constant war raging between breweries to make the strongest beer.

“7.5%, you say? That’s pathetic. Mine’s 8.5%”

“Yeah? Well how about 9%? This bad boy’s so strong it has undertones of meths.”

After two hours wandering around side streets and trotting past reproduction windmills, any responsible Brit will need a beer. Of course there’s no need to worry that it’s only midday: you’re on holiday.

You rock up to one of those bars that look out over a canal. The dirty chug of a tour motorboat’s engine wafts through the air every 30 seconds or so. You pretend not to notice. You pick a beer on tap.

“Medium or large?” the barman says.

“Large, please.” You’re not having a medium beer on holiday!

After 20 minutes or so of sipping, you get up for a pee and realise that you have to concentrate to walk in a straight line. You’re not wasted, but after less than a pint you shouldn’t even be tipsy.

That’s the blessing and the curse of Belgian beer. Little is required to get you merry, but it’s potent stuff. It wouldn’t be ideal to overdo it and fall into one of the canals. That said, if you did and survived, it would make for a hilarious story!

I realise I’ve got this far through my guide but only touched on the sights you should see. If you can brave the painful queue, which moves about as quickly as a snail on crutches, I’d recommend climbing the Belfry Tower in the Markt Square. The views at the top are terrific, and the ever-present prospect of a bone-shattering death, as you squeeze past people on the narrowest of steps, lends an added thrill.

As for other sights, just look them up on TripAdvisor. That’s what it’s there for. In short, if you want to waste time seeing how beer is brewed when you could be drinking it, visit the brewery. If you secretly harbour sadistic desires that you need to satiate every so often to stave off the bloodlust, you could always leer at humanity’s cruelty in the torture museum. Or, if you’re hankering after a bemusing, nonsensical tale about a parrot, or want to endure one of the crudest VR experiences imaginable, pop to the Historium Brugge.

In summary, Bruges is an interesting place to visit if you like looking at old architecture, or you’re willing to drink enough beer to convince yourself that you do. The bonus is that the volumetric requirement of this self-deception is fairly low thanks to the blinding strength of Belgian beer. The legions of bicycles and cars are a pain in the arse, however, and the attractions vary from underwhelming to bizarre. Plus, there’s no way Brendan Gleeson could have thrown himself off the Belfry Tower: it has metal grilles over all of the openings.

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