Jerusalem Church and Lace Museum

Jeruzalemkerk and the Lace Museum is one of my favourite places to visit in Bruges as it is off the normal tourist trail.

It was built in the 15th century by the Adornes family who had travelled on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and were so impressed with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that they built a copy of it in Bruges.

The altar is carved with skulls and bones and the atmosphere is very cave-like.

Next to the church is the Lace Museum situated in renovated almshouses.

In the afternoon you can watch lace making demonstrations showing how bobbin lace is made.

Christmas in Bruges

The Christmas market in Bruges started the last weekend of November. The market takes over the Markt with an ice-skating rink in the middle.

Most of the stalls in the Markt were selling food and drink, including impressive sausage baguettes.

Another part of the market was based at Simon Stevinplein.

Luckily Matt managed to visit the market once before he broke his foot, although we didn't really buy much from the markets (I've been to better Christmas markets in England). Bruges is full of (mainly English) tourists at Christmas time so Matt was lucky that he managed to go shopping only the one time, followed by a few drinks at a hostel bar.

Our original plan was to go back to England for the Christmas period, but because Matt broke his foot just before Christmas we decided to stay in Bruges as Matt wasn't very mobile at that point and his foot was still quite painful. So we stayed in, skyped our families, ate a lot of food, and watched a lot of telly. Kerri's family came for a few days on Boxing Day.