Travel is about learning, and we all learn in different ways.
There is no shortage of very entertaining ways to learn a little about Brugge. There are tours by bus, by boat, by horse and carriage, bicycle, on foot and who knows what else, all packaged with their own selection of statistical information, humour and of course, lies, each of which over the passage of time will no doubt contribute to a complete re-writing of history of the town.
We often avail ourselves of one of them when we arrive in a city for the first time because they do give a nicely packaged overview of the layout and history of the place. We are only too aware however, that if we are looking for facts there’s nothing like a visit to the library or museum to confirm that we really were looking at a mustard plant growing in the third from top window box on the fourth highest brick building in the entire cosmos.
Our favourite method of getting a rundown on the town usually takes a little longer, and comes with a completely different set of stories. It’s called “accepting an invitation to visit”, just as we did a few nights ago when Ria’s cousin Martien and her husband Boetje invited us for a hilarious night of what could be very broadly termed modern history instruction.
Of course we’ve spent a good deal of time over many years in the company of Dave and Ria too on what is effectively their home turf, and some would fairly ask what we possibly hoped to learn from our visit to the exquisite Restaurant Franco-Belg in their company today.
We like to think of it as “revision”.
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