Travel with me to the Belfry of Brugges in Belgium

While visiting Bruges, be sure to check out the Belfry of Bruges.

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Click the link below to listen to the field recording of my visit to the bell tower:

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Recorded on an iPhone 6S at 4:00 PM 8/7/2015.

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► Listen on DSound

► Listen from source (IPFS)

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I remember standing in line to go up into the belltower. There is a one-in one-out policy which can take a while ase people like to be in the tower as it rings on 15 minute increments. While we were waiting, there was a guy walking through the crowd with a pair of scissors, offering to cut out people’s facial profiles onto the scraps of paper. I think he was asking 5-10 Euros each and it only took him a few minutes for each little work of art. This guy had a captive audience and was so good at what he did that he always had someone else wanting one. Not a bad gig at all.

We also saw a lady’s little lap-dog pee all over her purse when she sat it down. We debated telling her, warning her, but she looked super annoying. Besides, she was deep into a conversation and we didn’t want to interrupt. I’m sure she figured it out eventually.

Click here to view the full size panorama Bruges looking out from the Bell Tower

The Belfry of Bruges is arguably the most famous part of The Markt square. Taller and more impressive than any of the other building it was founded in 1240 as a wooden tower on a stone building. While the rest of the square was mostly commercial with wool and fabric traders and warehouses the building housing the Belfry was the home of city officials who performed the important financial functions for the city.

Some 40 years later the administrative functions were moved to the castle after a fire in the wooden structure of the Belfry resulted in a loss of many important documents.

Over several hundred years the building suffered multiple fires, some from lightening striking the high tower, and it wasn't until 1822 that the current stone tower was completed and finally fire risk was reduced.

Today the tower holds the 47 bells designed in 1741 by George Duméry and regularly chimes the hours and important events.

The tower is open to tourists and provides an unequaled view over the whole of Bruges. It will be 366 large stone steps to the top.

Source: http://www.the-markt.com/belfry-tower.html

I loved seeing all of the giant gears and mechanism that made the bells play their beautiful songs. Any engineer would love seeing the guts of this bell tower.

There was a funny but offensive scene in the move In Bruges where Colin Farrell tells some American tourist that they should avoid going up into the tower because of their...girth. They get angry and chase him around a bit. This is the tower they were talking about and it really was claustrophobically tight all the way up to the top. You can find the scene easy enough by searching for it, on Youtube, but like I said, it’s pretty offensive so I decided not to include it here.

It was great to be able to be in the tower when the bells rang. I could feel the sound waves with my entire body. It was very, very loud in there when the bells rang. The low pitched larger bells were just amazing to hear up close.

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Cheers,
Mike Bryant (AKA: @rebele93)
https://steemit.com/@rebele93

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