Coffee time :D
I looked many times this building from Brussels's Grand Place, but this is the first time (maybe it's new, who the frak knows :P) I noticed that this little fellow is handling a sword like in SoulReaver; the other guys, the monsters, the angels around and the way it's looking, with those wings... it's like I heard already that music and that voice: "I know you Raziel..." So fraking cute, I loved it!
If you're in Belgium, then it's a must to have some "moule et frittes" (mussels and chips) and a pint of local beer in Brugge :D I really like this town, my preferate in Belgium, very good preserved and a delightful medieval atmosphere :)
In the Notre Dame church is this sculpture made by Michaelangelo himself, the reason this piece of art is still here is because the guys who ordered it didn't pay when it was ready for delivery or something like that.
In this basilisk there is a legend that here is kept a relic containing the holy blood of Jesus Christ. The church itself has two levels, the lower chapel and the upper chapel, where the relic is.
Legend has it that after the Crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea wiped blood from the body of Christ and preserved the cloth. The relic remained in the Holy Land until the Second Crusade, when the King of Jerusalem gave it to his brother-in-law, Count of Flanders Diederik. The count arrived with it in Brugge around 1150 and placed it in a chapel he had built on Burg Square. The real story seems to be that it came from Constantinople, which had an extensive collection of relics including one of the Holy Blood.
The town of Brugge is unique. Everything seems to be the same after one hour, but is not. The weather is changing, the light is changing, colors are different... Nowhere in the Netherlands (they are quite envious because this town is in Belgium), one will find a spot that has preserved its former look in a such a striking way, a great number of magnificent buildings are reminiscent of the unsurpassed flowering during the middle ages. The place is older though, Vikings established a fortified place or "brygghia" here. During the time, foreign merchants offered goods for sale, local artisans prospered, and so they formed guilds. Battles came up, but in the 14th century was Brugge's Golden Age, many independent tradesmen were responsible for the flowering of the cloth industry, foreigners and artists alike established here, and the town became the foremost center of commerce, and the most important money market of Northern Europe.
