"The Belfrey of Bruges (Brugge)" Brugge by yooperprof

In the marketplace of Bruges stands the belfrey old and brown
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys here and there,
Wreathes of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the older times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes.

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sang in the choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again.

All the foresters of Flanders: mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick de Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy du Dampierre.

I beheld the pagents splendind that adorned the days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold;

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I beheld gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,
And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's next.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

Till the bells of Ghent resounded o'er lagoons and dike of sand,
"I am Roland! I am Roland! There is victory in the land!"

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfrey crossed the sun-illumined square.

A city of many canals

That's the famous Church of Our Lady in the distance.

street scene

In 1993 I traveled to Belgium by ferry from England, where I was spending several weeks. I was visiting an acquaintance who lived in Flanders, someone I had met in Oxford in 1991. This fellow - I'll call him Luc - invited me to be his guest for a few days so that he could show me "the Burgundian life" with all its pleasures. Alas, this was not one of my successful foreign ventures. For a variety of reasons, things did not work out well. In part it was due to classic cultural misunderstanding, probably mostly my fault; it part it was due to a basic incompatibility in our personalities. At any rate, I didn't take many pictures while I was in Belgium, so I don't have a whole lot to show today for my trip a decade ago.

When I go back to Belgium, I would like to rediscover the elements of "the Burgundian life" which I so much enjoyed. Of course Brugge/Bruges was fantastic, but I was only there for an afternoon. (I was in Belgium for just five days.) I'd love to go back there in the wintertime, when the tourists are thinner on the ground and the spirits of the past more likely to be walking around. Luc also showed me other Flemish gems which I want to return to: Antwerp, Ghent, and Leuven/Louvain. I'd also like to explore the Walloon region: Luc was Flemish, and naturally he exposed me to the part of the country he was most familiar with. Belgium has a great deal to offer the traveller: great food, battlefields appropriate for "the cockpit of Europe," incredible art from Jan van Eyck to Magritte, and the best beer in the world.

• Pros:Formerly a port on the North Sea, Brugge/Bruges still has a lot of water
• In a nutshell:Truly, the Venice of the North