Bruges and beyond

Before this trip started I had marked Bruges as a potential highlight. Admittedly, I had only heard of the place - and wanted to go there - because of the movie In Bruges. To quote from the movie: "it looked like a fairytail".

When I got there I was pretty impressed. The movie was filmed on location and everywhere you went you could see familiar sights. It was a pretty place. However, a couple of things didn´t come across when you watched the movie:

1) The sheer volume of tourists that were there. This brought with it its own issues such as crowds everytwhere and overpriced food/drinks everywhere.

2) How little Bruges is.

You could walk around the entire town in about an hour. Its great for a day trip, but after a few hours you´d seen everything. As time went on I could empathise more and more with Colin Farrell´s character in the movie (which, for those of you that haven´t seen it, HATED the place) and always refers to it as a "shithole". His best line was: "I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. Maybe if I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn´t, so it doesn´t."

Certainly by the end of my forth night I was ready to move on. Probably the highlight wasn´t Bruges itself but Ypres. I went there on a battlefield tour to check out Flanders fields.

The first thing that struck me was just how flat it was. The "high ground" that literally tens of thousands pf soldiers died trying to take was nothing more than a very gentle incline on a hill. The New Zealander´s were well represented there - especially on the Passchendale Ridge - with numerous monuments, and of course, a large number of graves.

We were also shown a number of photographs of the area during the First World War. It looked like a picture of the moon with craters everywhere, as well as mud. It must have been obvious that ordering attacks in such conditions was suicide. In fact, we were told that during the Third Battle of Ypres (when the New Zealand battalion took heavy losses at Passchendaele) its estimated that a third of all the deaths were due to drowning in the mud.

We also leared that an average of three artillary shells landed per meter of land in Flanders. Also, 1 in every 3 shells didn´t go off. So, statistically speaking, everywhere we went we were standing on live ammunition. This explained why when we were on Hill 60 (called Hill 60 because it was 60 meters above sea level) our tour guide got us to go first...

Walking amongst the graves of the soldiers that were killed its hard not to think that it was such a futile waste of life, with so little gained. It worked out that the Allies gained about 5cm of ground for every soldier killed. Maybe the line in Blackadder Goes Forth, that General Haig wants his drinks trolley 18 inches closer to Berlin, has a ring of truth to it.

AFter that sobering experience I made my way to Copenhagen. Copenhagen was nice. On my last night I went to Tivoli which was the worlds first theme park. It was every 14 year olds dream: a theme park that you felt was all to yourself. I didnt que for anything and the rides were really really good. As an example I went on a rollercoaster, didn´t que - just jumped on - and at the end we asked the conducter if we could go again. He shrugged and said sure.

Also went on an aeroplane ride that you controlled yourself. Some of the time I was the only person on the ride. It was really amazing. I also did a bit of shooting and it turns out I´m a bit of a sharp shooter. Won a few things which was fun.

I´m currently in Sweden catching up with Martin and Johanna. Its great to see a few familiar faces! Sweden is terrific even though its very cold (5 degrees last night!).

Next stop is Stockholm where I´ll be heading in a few days.

Talk soon

Anthony