Day 2: Bruges: Belfry

We left the Stadhuis and walked a few steps over to the Belfry. My quick Google search showed this was best to visit on a clear day. While it wasn't actively raining, it was certainly not clear. Although, this picture makes it look much clearer than it felt in the moment. When we walked up to the ticket booth there was a family debating whether or not to go up, they passed because their canal boat driver told them to only go up on a clear day when they could see the North Sea miles away. Don and I knew we were either going up then, or never.

We chose then.

The Belfort (as it is called in Flemish) was built in the 13th century to house the carillon. This UNESCO site is 273 feet tall, and requires climbing up 366 steps (25 or so are outside). What they don't tell you is the staircase is narrow and people climb in both directions. I was glad we went on a less than ideal day as it kept the crowds at bay.

There are 47 bells in the carillon. Every two years the songs that are played on the hour, quarter hour, half hour, and three-quarter hour are changed in the weeks leading up to Easter. It is tradition for church bells to be silent in the week leading up to Easter, then ring gloriously at noon.

For these two years the main song is "Somewhere over the Rainbow." This means the other three songs have to match the tempo of the main song as they are all stored on the same roller (think player piano). 

When we finally made it all the way to the top we heard the quarter hour song. Until that moment, I didn't even realize it was still an active carillon. I heard bells playing all day long in the city -- I didn't pause to think where the sounds were coming from. The sound was actually much quieter than I expected it to be given we were in a confined space with them. The city has a city carillonneur who plays live music three days a week (Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 11 am to noon). We were there on a Thursday. 

Historically the bells were used to mark the time of day, or make announcements. It was THE clock for the city.

The walk gets progressively narrower as we reach each stage. The last bit was so tight when Don asked if I wanted to join him at the top to hear the song at the top of the hour, I waited in the drum room instead. People were polite. We didn't have any kids running up and down, but I still passed.

As I sat in the drum room I listened to people huffing and puffing up the stairs (I hope we didn't sound like that!). I listened to couples talking in languages from around the world. I marveled at how this structure has survived nearly 700 years.

Don returned and we walked down to the exit. We spoke with the woman running the gift shop on the first floor (American second floor) about St. Nicholas Day. She said the holiday used to involve just giving gifts to children, but has evolved to include adults. The Dutch celebrate differently than the Belgians. When we saw Yoran's parents on St. Nicholas Day they had gifts for us. It is a bigger gift giving holiday than Christmas. For Christmas they celebrate with a Secret Santa, and give the most gifts on St. Nicholas Day. This is a holiday we celebrated growing up, a carry over from Germans. It was the day we put our Christmas lists in our stockings and Santa left behind a small gift (maybe some film or a crossword puzzle book for me) when he took the list to fill on Christmas Eve.

We left the Stadhuis in search of hot chocolate to warm up.

The carillonneur has a tough
commute to work