Bruges

This city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is often referred to as the Venice of the North because of its extensive system of canals. Below is Minnewater Park, home to the legendary "Lake of Love." Minna, legend has it, was a young woman smitten with a warrior from a neighboring tribe. To avoid a marriage to someone else, arranged by her father, she fled into the forest. Although she found her lover she died, exhausted, in his arms.

 

The Beguinage of Bruges was formerly home to a community of single or widowed women, the beguines, who devoted themselves to charity. 

 

The famed swans of Bruges were allegedly forced upon the city by the Emperor Maximillian, after the townspeople captured the Emperor and killed a trusted advisor. He demanded that they maintain 101 swans (which consume a great deal and leave their droppings everywhere) for all eternity or the city would fall into ruin. The tradition of caring for the swans has been honored from the 1480's.

 

                             The medieval Saint-Jean Hospital, which actually functioned as a hospital until 1977.

 

                                    This was part of the castle-like home of a prominent brewer.

 

                            The Belfry of Bruges is a 13th-century belfry containing a carillon of 47 bells. 

                                                                                     

Market Square, with guild houses in the background.