Bruges Day 3- In Bruges

What the hell is there to do in Bruges??? I picked up a brand new map today, left behind by someone curiously in the chocolate aisle of a supermarket I was shopping at. Fate? Not quite sure, but the map does give an interesting read about the “hidden” side of Bruges. It also gives a timeline of important events in Bruges, of which it reads:

“1600 and 1700 and 1800: Bruges falls asleep.
1892: Bruges wakes up. The popular book ‘Bruges la Morte’ describes the city as a dark, poor, and ugly place. Locals are not too happy with this, but tourists see some romance in it, and start visiting Bruges more and more.
2009: The movie ‘In Bruges’ wines an award for best scenario. Quote: “If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t, so it doesn’t.” So just like in 1892, somebody calls Bruges a shithole, which attracts only more tourists.”

Hehe and I’m one of those tourists! I thought there’d be a lot more to do here, but it pretty much is dead. Seriously! Since I’ve walked most streets within Bruges (the town is circular shaped, with the river as the defining border running on the outside), I decided to hunt down all the grocery stores, then walk the perimeter today.
Most of the grocery stores in Bruges that show up on Google maps are small delicatessens. There are 4 Carrefour Express that I’ve encounter thus far, but they remain the more expensive supermarket, which is surprising, given that it’s Carrefour! I found one Spar, but that was closed ;(. Proxy I found yesterday, and they’re my favorite, in terms of reasonable prices, location and layout of the store. I stumbled onto Match today (which isn’t even listed on Google maps! BAAAADDDD Google!) and they’re the cheapest, but far away ;(. Well, nothing is too far away in Bruges… unless you’ve bought 6 pounds of chocolate and are lugging it back through a sudden downpour of rain. Yea… not fun. But I scored Cote d’Or Sea Salt Caramelized Almonds chocolate bar for 2.88 euros each! I haven’t found it that cheap so far! Other places in Bruges sell it for 4.5 euros, and France I think was in the 3 euro range.
There’s not much people walking about outside the touristy area… not even locals! Sure, there are lots of cars driving the perimeter… not quite sure where they’re going. Although I did happen to see some windmills:



Climbed to the top of the windmill, only to discover you have to pay 1 euro to get a short tour of the place (basically a placard describing the history). Two guys before me got suckered into paying, but I headed right back down the narrow and very steep staircase.

A couple guys had climbed up right after me and they headed right back down too. Us Americans! There’s a handrail only on one side of the stairs, so it’s quite precarious! My foot is fatter than the width of the step!

Bruges has 4 remaining guard posts left from the medieval ages. The wall guarding the city is long gone, but the 4 entry gates to the city are (reminded me of Taipei, actually) quite beautiful. I thought they were small castles at first:


This gate supposedly has a bronze cast of a skull, but I didn’t see it ;(. It is the skull of a traitor to Bruges, when he opened the gates in 1688 to let enemies in. As I don’t have the internet here, can’t really Wikipedia it to find out the gory details :T.
Another gate:

And another gate:

Joy. Soooo looking forward to tomorrow… well, cheer up cap’ there’s a morning market tomorrow!