For me, going to Bruges felt like a pilgrimage. I wanted to see Frank Brangwyn’s collection in the Arendthuis, one of the few places with significant Brangwyn holdings on display (a quick shout out here to the William Morris Gallery ,which is one of the others). Just going to Bruges recreates many of the feelings I think medieval pilgrims must have had, and many of these aren’t so positive.
It is fair to say that Bruges exists only for tourists. There is nothing else other than places to see, eat, visit, and buy. Many of them are historical or quite marvellous, and many are average or second rate. Plenty are both.
The Church of Our Lady is one of them. This has an incredible tower and a daunting interior space, a Michaelangelo sculpture, and the tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy along with the wonderful tomb-drawings within. The downsides are that the route is somewhat proscribed, most of the art in the church is very second rate, and the Michaelangelo sculpture can only be enjoyed from about 15 yards away and not in the round. It is also pretty pricey (they had knocked the price down when we were there as there were also scaffolding and other works).
This is a recurring theme- a plethora of places to see, each of them bleeding the pilgrim of cash slightly more than they probably should.
The museums have this same issue. the Groeninge Museum has some of the most colourful and striking pictures from the Flemish primitives- Gerard David’s Judgement of Cambyses, works by Van Eyck, Heironymous Bosch, Hans Memling and others amounting to a world-class collection. The later periods, however, are rather less copiously represented- the poster teases with a Ferdinand Khnopff, but it is the only Khnopff on display and there are a scant few symbolist pictures here. Although after the thrill of the primitives collection, anything else is a bonus.
The Old Hospital/Memling Museum is split between the activities on the site as history, and display of Memling and others works. I didn’t find the depth and breadth of context about the hospital particularly inspiring, but the artwork as part of this was. The Memling is awesome, particularly St Ursula, and there is a fine example of a polychrome wooden Johannisschüssel. The associated old apothecary has a wide collection of Ex Voto amulets which amused me.
The two actually religious main places, St Saviors Cathedral and the Basilica of the Holy Blood, are both free (with a little charge for the latter’s treasury), and the interest and quality in these eclipse most of the paid attractions.
St Saviours has more colourful and wonderfully evocative tomb paintings, and a treasury containing some fantastic goldworked embroidery and gravestones amongst other genuine treasures. The Basilica of the Holy Blood does actually have the holy blood, complete with attendent priest, and is heavily polychromed. Mentioning Morris again the whole place looks like it was wallpapered by the man himself. There is an intriguing pulpit in the form of a globe as map, and the treasury has more embroidery along with some painted glass.
The downside of Bruges is not these places, but the rest of the place. Commercial tourism is not parasitic in Bruges- it is what binds these places of art together, but it is not pleasant. Surly waiting staff aggressively pushing massively overpriced set menus, constant thronging crowds and peculiarly unfriendly opening hours make much of the logistics rather unfun. Bruge’s commerce is a large high street the same as everywhere else, and the rest of the town seems to be chocolate shop/restaurant/lace shop with the occasional novelty beer sellers. Not exactly unexpected, and it doesn’t ruin the treasures, but it makes it hard to really enjoy the place when the normal price for a medium Coca-Cola is 9,75. I get the feeling that this tradition, of gouging pilgrims, is as old as the town itself.
