Last year the movie “In Bruges” appeared at American theaters. According to the credits it starred Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. The actual star of the movie is the city of Bruges itself. Located in the province of West Flanders, north west of Brussels and a brief train ride from the North Sea Coast. On my last trip to Bruges, we arrived by train from Brussels. This was after a flight from Denver. We were fatigued, but determined to use mass transit to reach our destination of Bruges. I had been to Bruges hundreds of times prior to this trip when I had lived in Antwerpen. That was with a different husband. We then had an automobile, his native language was Flemish and he had friends living in the city. Now, close to 20 years later, I was being the tour guide for my “new” husband. Unfortunately, I had forgotten most of the Flemish I had crammed into my English speaking brain so I brought along a pocket size “Dutch” language book. Most Flemish people speak fluent English, so I knew I wouldn’t actually need it. I will try hard during this writing to spell Bruges in the English/French way, although I much prefer to spell cities and towns in the language that is spoken there. That would put Bruges as Brugge.
We arrived at the Brussels airport in the midst of the am rush hour. Customs was a brief experience and before long we began looking for the train station. In just minutes we found the signage and took an escalator down to level one. Within minutes of purchasing our tickets, a train arrived and we took it to Brussels North. It was there we changed trains, finding one going in the direction of Bruges. I had over packed, and being rush hour, the space was limited. Most of the passengers were chattering in French, although Brussels is officially bi-lingual and sits in heart of Flanders. We watched the buildings as we passed by. There were Gothic style churches blocks from new apartment buildings. Soon the urban sprawl was replaced by small farms and straight rows of trees. Shortly after an hour commute we departed the train at the Bruges station.
The elevator down from the platform was kaput, so we navigated the step stairs with our over packed bags. Just outside of the station was the bus depot and ticket kiosk. Taxi’s were lined up awaiting arriving passengers. One could not help but notice the large bicycle parking lot adjacent to the train station. We opted to walk to our hotel. It was just to the west of the station in Sint Michels. Like
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