Brugge is a lovely city. This is our second visit here and it is just as delightful this time as it was the first time.
How can you compete with both a French Fry Museum and a Chocolate museum? You can’t especially when you add traditional windmills, incredible architecture and friendly people. And Lace. Did I mention the LACE? I wandered into a lace store with a heritage section and saw bobbin lace doilies, the size of a saucer made up of thousands of stitches that made my eyes spin. I digress. It’s my short attention span kicking in. Again.
And Oh My Goodness, the cathedral has a Michelangelo Madonna sculpture that is the only one exported from Italy in his lifetime. And one of the churches….no I’m going no further on that one, as I might offend.
Digressing again.
The inner city is surrounded by canals and I’m sure if you looked at it from above you would see a lovely series of concentric circles. After all if the inner city is completely surrounded by said canals, circles must come into play somehow, somewhere. At any rate, our lovely B & B is located within the encircling canals and we are only a few blocks from the square.
We were walking on one of the streets leading off the square towards what we hoped would be dinner, when the road rage incident occurred.
The street was one lane wide with parking and sidewalks on each side. Parking and sidewalks in Europe often occupy the same space, so not a lot of space. A man on a bike was coming towards us. So….
Road Rage Brugge Style
Single-lane road, no pull-over space.
Man rides bike down the middle of said single-lane road.
Man in posh car pulls close up behind. Follows impatiently for oh, say, five seconds.
Man in posh car honks at man on bike and gesticulates furiously.
Man on bike stops, puts foot down on road surface, turns and glares at man in car.
Man in car continues furious gesticulation.
Man on bike engages bike stand, dismounts and walks back to car.
My friend Barb and I at this point beat a hasty retreat as a vociferious argument ensues, and watch from the safety of some distance. We of course don’t understand the language so can only guess at what is being said. But it’s angry.
Man from the bike, walks slowly in a stately, calm manner back to the bike, slowly remounts and ever so slowly pedals away. Down the middle of the single-lane road.
Man in car ineffectually follows. He has no chance to pass for blocks.
Bike One, posh car Nil.
LOL.
Dinner did in fact follow. Ironically in Belgium, inventor of the French Fry (according to them) and moules, we decided on Hawaiian poke. What a small, international world.