Pictures from 2006 Ghent IP, Part 3A (or: The Trip to Brugge, Our Lady's Church)

Saturday morning, struggling to get out of bed after the French Soirée, I decided to take a trip to Brugge. I learned that Brugge was a Medieval city with narrow, crooked streets, old cathedrals, and even parts of the original wall built to protect the city from invaders. It was also quite popular with tourists, but that was okay since we went in January, typically the low season when most tourists go to warmer locations. Leaving the hostel, Kerry, Sarah and I walked to the tram stop to take a tram to Ghent's train station.

Side note: Trams are something that I was unaware of when first arriving in Ghent. Prior to arriving, I was given written directions to get from the Ghent train station to the hostel via Tram 1, but I had no clue what a tram looked like. I wasn't sure if trams looked like buses, small trains, subway cars, or horse-drawn carriages. I'll save you all the suspense by saying that trams run on rails in the streets, powered by electrical lines overhead. Here's a photo of a tram, courtesy of Alex:

Note the tangle of wires overhead. Looking back, it seems pretty obvious to call them trams...

Back to the story: On our way to the tram stop, Kerry and Sarah posed for a photo:

You can see the excitement in their eyes. We were going to Brugge! After hopping a tram, then a train, and riding for about 20 minutes, we arrived in the Brugge train station and began to walk towards the city center. The first place we headed was Our Lady's Church, which has an amazingly high tower, 122 meters high I'm told. Fun fact: this makes it the second highest church tower in Belgium. Here are Kerry and Sarah posing in front of tower while we were still several blocks away, barely able to contain their giddiness:Please note also that the church tower is not actually leaning. I am an idiot when it comes to basic photograph composition.

When we got to the church, I got a few photos of the outside:

And then we went in:

This was a beautiful church, like the others I saw in Ghent, but for some reason I found it depressing. Kerry told me I must have been feeling melancholy that day, and he was probably right. I thought the church was beautiful, but the fact that it was (slowly) crumbling into a pile of rocks made me wonder what all the effort to build it was for. Granted, this crumbling is happening over a period of hundreds of years, so I don't know what my problem was. This church has lasted longer than most structures in the United States. I think the next picture shows the decaying beauty of the church: After we finished at the church, we roamed around the town looking for chocolates and Belgian lace. I should point out that Sarah was looking for Belgian lace. I was only looking for chocolates. I will continue this saga in another post. It's time for supper!