Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
where the rest of the museum is.
The centerpiece of the incredible carving is the Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V. The hometown duke, on the far left, is related
to Charles V. By making the connection to the Holy Roman
Emperor clear, this carved family tree of Bruges' nobility helped
substantiate their power. Notice the closely guarded family jewels.
And check out the expressive little cherubs.
Crowne Plaza Hotel
One of the city's newest buildings (1992) sits atop the ruins of the
town's oldest structures. In about a.d. 900, when Viking ships
regularly docked here to rape and pillage, Baldwin Iron Arm built
a fort
(castrum)
to protect his Flemish people. In 950, the fort was
converted into St. Donatian's Church, which became one of the
city's largest.
Ask politely at the hotel's reception desk to see the archaeo-
logical site—ruins of the fort and the church—in the basement.
If there's no conference in progress, they'll let you walk down the
stairs and have a peek.
In the basement of the modern hotel are conference rooms
lined with old stone walls and display cases of objects found in the
ruins of earlier structures. On the immediate left hangs a photo of
a document announcing the
Vente de Materiaux
(sale of material).
When Napoleon destroyed the church in the early 1800s, its bricks
were auctioned off. A local builder bought them at auction, and
now the pieces of the old cathedral are embedded in other build-
ings throughout Bruges.
See oak pilings, carved to a point, once driven into this former
peat bog to support the fort and shore up its moat. Paintings show
the immensity of the church that replaced it. The curved stone
walls you walk among are from the foundations of the ambulatory
around the church altar.
Excavators found a town water hole—a bonanza for archae-
ologists—turning up the refuse of a thousand years of habitation:
pottery, animal skulls, rosary beads, dice, coins, keys, thimbles,
pipes, spoons, and Delftware.
Don't miss the 14th-century painted sarcophagi—painted
quickly for burial, with the crucifixion on the west end and the
Virgin and Child on the east.
• Back on Burg Square, walk south under the Goldfinger family (through
the small archway)
down the alleyway called...
blinde ezelstraat
Midway down on the left side (knee level), see an original iron
hinge from the city's south gate, back when the city was ringed by
a moat and closed nightly at 22:00. On the right wall, at eye level,
