Goodbye Ghent, Hello Bruges, Goodbye Bruges

Ghent was a pleasant surprise. We weren't expecting much, as the city is so often overlooked in favor of Brussels and Bruges, but we really liked it. The largest car-free pedestrian zone in Belgium, lots of restaurants and shops, enough people out and about to feel pleasantly energetic without being overcrowded, some interesting museums, and cool trams to get you around -- just the sort of things we like, and to top it off, it's a pretty place.

An unexpected pleasure of our stay in Ghent was seeing a special exhibition of works by the Belgian artist James Ensor. There's a wonderful painting of his, Skeletons Warming Themselves, at the Kimbell back home in Fort Worth, but we had no idea he had done so much so well. His view of the world is unique and often hilarious: skeletons galore, doing such things as fighting over a smoked herring, and cartoonish, colorful drawings of crowds of Belgians swimming at Ostend or welcoming Christ into Brussels. It's unsettling to realize that these pieces are contemporaneous with Monet's water lilies and Renoir's garden portraits.

Late Sunday afternoon we left Ghent and took the train to Bruges, where we're staying at the Crowne Plaza in the historical center. Ghent is quaint but real, while Bruges is so picturesque and storybook as to seem almost like a Disneyish MiddleAgesLand. Everywhere one looks there are charming views, and lots of tourists enjoying them, even now in a drizzly January. Bruges has fewer pedestrian zones and more cars in the city center than Ghent -- several times we've almost been run down on narrow cobblestone streets by speeding Citröens and Volvos.

This quaint storybookness has strange effects: I've got a sudden urge to take lots of snapshots of doors, many with bicycles, a couple of which I've posted on Flickr.

A big surprise of this trip has been how good Belgian food is. I mean, it's really good, with every meal better than the last. I've been trying to think of the best way to describe it but all I've come up with is beef or chicken with some sort of sauce. It's not spicy or elegant or even pretty, but it is delicious and filling, with the quality matched by quantity. (Most every main course comes with a huge bowl of fries.) We've been going to small local places recommended by our hotels and have never been disappointed. (Travel tip: when looking for places to eat, rely on hotel staff and ignore the places that inevitably ring the popular tourist sites.)

We were lucky to catch the last week of a big exhibition, Van Eyck to Dürer, a stunning display of Flemish Primitives at Bruges' Groeninge Museum. The one annoying thing about the show was the large number of people stumbling around with those stupid audioguide thingies stuck to their ears.

Our hotel room in Bruges comes without breakfast so we've been going out for a coffee in the morning. Quite by accident we found a nearby HEMA store, which is somewhat like a small Target with clothes and household goods. They have a café on the top floor that every morning from 9 to 10 offers a cup of coffee, a croissant, and a bacon and egg sandwich for €1. Yes, you read that correctly, one euro for coffee, croissant, and an egg/bacon sandwich. And it's good, too.

The weather has been cold and wet but we're plodding onward. Tomorrow we spend our last morning in Bruges before leaving for five nights in Brussels.

Flickr snaps are here.

P.S. Belgium has windmills.