At first sight this Market-Place, so famed in song, is a disappointment.
The north side is occupied by a row of seventeenth-century houses
turned into shops and third-rate cafes. On the east is a modern
post-office, dirty and badly ventilated, and some half-finished
Government buildings. On the west are two houses which were once
of some note--the Cranenburg, from the windows of which, in olden
times, the Counts of Flanders, with the lords and ladies of their
Court, used to watch the tournaments and pageants for which Bruges
was celebrated, and in which Maximilian was imprisoned by the burghers
in 1488; and the Hotel de Bouchoute, a narrow, square building
of dark red brick, with a gilded lion over the doorway. But the
Cranenburg, once the 'most magnificent private residence in the
Market-Place,' many years ago lost every trace of its original
splendour, and is now an unattractive hostelry, the headquarters
of a smoking club; while the Hotel de Bouchoute, turned into a
clothier's shop, has little to distinguish it from its commonplace
neighbours. Nevertheless,
'In the Market-Place of Bruges stands the Belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.
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