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Bruges is a real pearl in a necklace of Flanders. Along with a few other canal-based northern cities, such as Amsterdam, it's sometimes called as "The Venice of the North". The history of Bruges begins around 2000 years ago. Bruges still saved its medieval look. Picturesque market squares, dreamy canals and old almshouses bring in front of your eyes that old times when heroes of “The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak” by Charles De Coster walked along Bruges narrow streets, and like many years ago the water in canals is streaming and people live in same buildings...

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One of the symbols of Bruges is the swan... There exists a nice legend about the swans of Bruges. In 1488 the people of Bruges had executed one of the town administrators belonging to the court of Maximilian of Austria, husband and successor of duchess Mary of Burgundy. The town administrator was called 'Pieter Lanchals', a name which means ' long neck'. The Lanchals family coat of arms featured a white swan. Legend has it that Maximilian punished Bruges by obliging the population to keep swans on their lakes and canals till eternity... Believe it or not but a lot of swans are everywhere in Bruges until now. This city and swans can’t be divided and Bruges can be called Swan City...

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The Minnewater and its lovely park are the entrance to the beautiful city of Bruges. Because of the idyllic surroundings it is mostly referred to as 'the lake of Love' (the Dutch word 'Minne' means 'love')...
Actually, the origins of the lake are less romantic. It was here that the coastal river 'Reie' entered the city. The river was later canalized and made to continue until the center of town. It is not sure where the name 'Minnewater' comes from. An explanation could be 'water van het gemeen', which could be translated as the 'common water'. The lake was used as a water reservoir, to keep the water of the canals at a constant level. Next to the lake is the Minnewater park, where sometimes in the summertime (rock) concerts are organized.

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Window of some store with excellent logo... and her...
She was smoking and only cigarette was her best friend to whom she could open her mind... She was deep in thought... I have no idea what she was thinking about... may be about her evening date, may be she was just under magic of the letter right near her... in this case I understand her because I always thought that any letter is some enigmatic code hidden in its shape and all the people (even they, who can read) understand just small part of that mysterious riddle...

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“Street cat”... this expression is very seldom in New York because all the pets (including cats} usually have the owners or waiting for owners in shelters. So... even if you meet some cat on the street it’s not a “street cat”, you can be sure she has a home. It’s different in Europe. Here you can see real “street cats” who lives on the streets and don’t have owners, they are owners for themselves and for all the streets around. They are really free and sometimes very happy by their freedom...
Glorious city of Ghent was not an exception... I saw that beautiful “street cat” sitting on one of the small bridges not so far from Sain Nicolas’ Church in a very paintful place of the city. This beauty {I mean cat} doesn’t want to talk with me and right after I made two steps closer to her just run away... she probably didn’t want to sher her possession of this city with a stranger...

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