Stepping Out: The Venice of the North

On the old square in Bruges

While the majority of my time here is intended simply to spend time with the Eeckhouts and to participate in what they do on a daily basis, today we ventured into the tourist realm and headed northwest to Bruges, a 12^th century city that’s a World Heritage Site and is often referred to as the Venice of the North. When you picture a perfectly quaint and ridiculously charming European city set on canals running all through the city, you’re picturing Bruges (okay, you might also be picturing Venice but for the purposes of today’s exercise, let’s call it Bruges).

Martin, Emmanuelle and Emile huddling
for warmth!

What’s also interesting about visiting Bruges from Brussels is that it’s kind of like visiting a whole different country. Belgium is a country divided into two main regions: the southern French-speaking region of Wallonia (where the Eeckhouts live) and the northern Dutch-speaking region of Flanders, where Bruges is located (there’s also a third region, the Brussels-Capital Region, which strictly contains, well, Brussels). We left the house and two hours later found ourselves in the Dutch-speaking part of the country, where all of the signs are in Dutch, there are no more French radio stations and French speakers are not super well-received. Very interestingly to me, as there exists a certain amount of animosity between the two regions (Flanders wants to be separate from the Wallonia…. Hello, Texas?), Emmanuelle said it would be better if she were to speak to people there in English instead of French as they would treat her better.

Sometimes taking the tourist boat is worth it!

For an American, it’s such an odd concept to imagine living in a country (which is approximately the size of Maryland, no less) and going from one part to the other and suddenly not being able to understand the language, as well as experiencing a different culture of sorts.

Fries are an institution here

Either way, despite the cold and grey day (as one of the boys said, Bruges wouldn’t really be Bruges if it were sunny and warm), we totally enjoyed our day there, meandering through the cobblestone streets and alleys and checking out nearly 1,000-year-old old Dutch architecture. We wandered through a still-operational Benedictine abbey and took a (tourist alert!) boat ride through the canals, which gave a really great view of the city. And of course, what touristy day in Belgium would be complete without Belgian waffles?! As a total novice, I thought they were fabulous but Emile rated them as “not great”. Belgians sure do know their waffles!

It somehow doesn't show in the photo, but all of these trees
are leaning to the right

In the evening when we got back home, to complete our thoroughly Belgian day, we all went to dinner at Barraque à frites Jean-Lou. I assumed we were going to a place to have fries with dinner but, no no, at this place fries ARE the dinner. For realz. Huge amounts of hand-cut, double-fried potatoes and served with any number of dipping sauces. And voila, dinner! I was also schooled on the fact that, despite common misconceptions, fries are actually a very Belgian invention. While I’m very willing to do my part to attempt to change the moniker of French fries to Belgian fries when back in the US, I’m not too sure it will catch on anytime soon. But change has to start somewhere, right?!