Brugge Belgium

Belgium is not a touristic country and I don’t understand why.
Brugges, Gent, Anvers, Liège and Brussels are the towns I’ve seen in Belgium and each one of them was worth the time and the money I spent there.
It is true that we are talking about a different amount of time, according with everybody’s preferences, culture and free time.

Brugges, for example, requires one week to be properly seen and felt. You will be amazed by how such a small town needs so much time in order to walk and visit it.
The narrow stone streets of Brugges will steal you away from the present. For two, three days, the only reason I can think of for staying still, is to eat and to rest.
After that, you can take it easy and go to see some churches, cathedrals and museums from inside, Brugge (also known as Brugges, Bruge, or Bruges) has inherited from the past.

Gent, another beautiful old and new town, will take you about four days to enjoy it.
In the historical center it seams like time stooped many years ago and we are waiting for the king to pass in front of us, on a black horse, with his suite on the side.
St. Bavo’s Cathedral, The Castle of the Counts, Belfort, St. Nicolas’ Church, The Town Hall, The St. James’ Church and St. Michael’s Church are not to be missed.

Anvers, known also as Antwerpen, the town where Peter Paul Rubens lived for 30 years, gives us the opportunity to see the largest Gothic cathedral in the Low Countries.
Here, we can admire four Rubens’s masterpieces: The Raising of the Cross, Assumption of the Virgin, The Resurrection of Christ and The Descent from the Cross.

Going on Wapper 9-11 Street, we’ll see the house where Rubens and his family once lived.
The house that Rubens and his wife Isabella Brant bought in 1610 was enlarged according to his specifications, with a semicircular statue gallery, a large studio and a portico.

Today, the portico and the garden are the only authentic remnants of the 17th-century complex.
For the portico, Rubens used classical details: two pairs of satyrs holding tablets bearing Latin mottos, two Olympian deities – on the left is Mercury, the god of painters, and on the right Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.

The message Rubens wanted to send is: this house is a temple of knowledge, dedicated to the art of painting.

La Cité Ardente, Liege is a one thousand-year-old city, an ancient capital of an independent principality for eight centuries.
In the 10-Th and 11-Th centuries, Liege was full of religious buildings, which were continuously redesigned, enhanced and enlarged.
A part of the beautiful Cathedral and Churches, you can find more about the City’s culture, by visiting the Museum of Walloon Art.
A very well organized museum, the visit begins on the fourth floor and continues along the many artistic currents, traveling through time as you go.

Brussels is more than the pissing boy statue. The wonderful Plaza in the Tourist Center deserves much more attention that the mediocre and yet, so famous, statue.
The same happens with The Church of Saint Nicholas.

Not to be neglected, the surprising skyscrapers built close to the North Train Station.

Brussels to Bruges, all beautiful cities which are worth a touristic tour.