Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
• Continue walking with the canal and bell tower on your right. About
100 yards ahead, on the left, is the copper-colored sign that points the
way to the...
groeninge museum
This sumptuous collection of paintings takes you from 1400 to
1945. The highlights are its Flemish Primitives, with all their
glorious detail.
J
See Groeninge Museum Tour on page 344.
• Leaving the Groeninge, take your first left, into a courtyard. You'll see
the prickly church steeple ahead. Head up and over the picture-perfect
19th-century pedestrian bridge.
From the bridge, look up at the corner of the Gruuthuse mansion,
where there's a teeny-tiny window, a toll-keeper's lookout. The bridge
gives you a close-up look at Our Lady's big buttresses and round apse.
Go slightly right, between the two huge buildings. On the right is a large
stone courtyard, where you'll find the entrance to the...
gruuthuse museum
This 15th-century mansion of a wealthy Bruges merchant dis-
plays period furniture, tapestries, coins, and musical instruments.
Extensive renovation will have this museum in a disappointing
state of disarray until 2011. Use the leaflets in each room to browse
through a collection of secular objects that are both functional and
beautiful. Here are some highlights:
On the left, in the first room (or
Great Hall
), the big fireplace,
oak table, and tapestries attest to the wealth of Louis Gruuthuse,
who got rich providing a special herb used to spice up beer.
Tapestries like the ones you see here
were a famous Flemish export product,
made in local factories out of raw wool
imported from England and silk brought
from the Orient (via Italy). Both beautiful
and useful (as insulation), they adorned
many homes and palaces throughout
Europe.
The Gruuthuse mansion abuts the
Church of Our Lady and has a convenient
little
chapel
(upstairs via the far corner of
Room 16) with a window overlooking the
interior of the huge church. In their private box seats above the
choir, the family could attend services without leaving home. From
the balcony, you can look down on two reclining gold statues in the
church, marking the tombs of Charles the Bold and his daughter,
Mary of Burgundy (the grandmother of powerful Charles V).
Leaving the museum, contemplate the mountain of bricks
