Archief

The May Fair. Every morning the city's clean-up teams are quite busy and... the means are equal to the job.

  
The Three Wise Men. In Belgium, we call them "The Three Kings", as you can read here. In previous years there have been different Melchior's. This is the 2004 Melchior.

The Three Wise Men. Since there were three of them, you still have two coming. Here is Balthasar.
The Three Wise Men came from different directions to see the child Jesus. They are bearing the symbols of wisdom of the Western, Eastern and African cultures. Here, you will notice the yin and yang design on the banner. 

The third of the Three Wise Men, Caspar. Caspar, as we can see from the expression on his face, was a bit reluctant to come and see the child Jesus.

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In the Katelijne street, somewhat halfway, is the entrance to two hotels. Left, the "Ibis" and right, the "Novotel". A tourist who made reservations at the hotel "Ibis", after reading that he was going to be lodged in a 15th century convent (oh yes, indeed, that is what the "Ibis" advertises) is in for a rude shock. Honestly, wouldn't you expect something quite different from this late 20th century building?

Tourists expecting to spend the night in an old convent will be lucky, when they enter this inner court of the hotel "Ibis", if they manage to notice anything of the "old" in the actual transformation - please, let's never call it restoration - of what used to be the Alexanian convent. In 1841 the Brothers of Love even built a refuge and hospice for men here, but in 1982, the city fathers had little or no regard for history and had decided that the old had to make way for the new (NOVOTEL).  And only for the sake of contrast was some of the original building integrated in the "Ibis" Novotel..

Were they really happily laughing about it in the eighties, when they shamelessly could demolish historical buildings? Novotel used materials from the small bell-tower of what ised to be the Alexanian convent, to build a bench in its hotel's inner court.  The remainder of the convent was rased but they kep the small tower as a joke. Or were their intentions serious, at the time? Utterly bad taste is all that can be said about it.

... reflects the grace of the city. Even these posts are decorated with the logo of Bruges : the elegant "B" with the small crown.

... tell us we are in Bruges.