Tag: church

Michelangelo Lives in Bruges

For me in any case, nothing better illustrates the historical prominence and wealth of Bruges than the magnificent Madonna and Child sculpture by Michelangelo on display in the Church of Our Lady. Wikipedia explains that the statue of Italian marble, completed in Italy in 1506, was destined for a location in Italy, but after a disagreement about money, Michelangelo sold the statue to the Mouscron brothers, two wealthy Bruges merchants. The Madonna was delivered to the buyers in Bruges and donated to its present home in 1514.

In fact Bruges played an oversized role in the revival of trade in Europe that began roughly in the 11th and 12th centuries. As European trade that had collapsed after the fall of the Western Roman Empire began to expand and flourish, Bruges for a time was northern Europe’s wealthiest leading city. In the third volume of his Civilization and Capitalism, 15th to 18th Century, French historian, Fernand Braudel, writes of Bruges:

It was all to culminate in the dazzling fortune of Bruges. By 1200, this city […] was included in the circuit of the Flemish fairs. This in itself made Bruges a more important place: she was receiving foreign merchants, her industry was thriving and her trade was reaching England and Scotland where she found the wool needed both for her looms and for re-export to the cloth-making towns of Flanders. […] And finally the arrival in Bruges of Hanseatic ships confirmed and developed her prosperity.

In 1277, the first Genoese ships put in to Bruges. The establishment of a
regular maritime link between the Mediterranean and the North Sea ushered in a decisive invasion by the southerners for the Genoese were but a foretaste of what was to come: the last of the newcomers, the Venetian galleys, arrived in 1314. […] But it was also a new departure [for Bruges] in the sense that the arrival of the sailors, ships and merchants of the Mediterranean brought in a wealth of goods, capital, and commercial and financial techniques. Rich Italian merchants came to live in the city, and brought with them consignments of some of the most precious commodities of the time: spices and pepper from the Levant which they exchanged for the industrial products of Flanders.

Thus Bruges came to be the centre of a huge trading area, covering no less than the Mediterranean, Portugal, France, England, the Rhineland, and the Hansa.

(Braudel, Fernand, tr. from the French by Siân Reynolds, Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Volume III, The Perspective of the World, Harper & Row, New York, 1984, p99)

My interest in Europe’s medieval and early modern history, fueled by scholars like Braudel, got me to Bruges in the first place. I was curious and wanted to take a look. The fact that the old part of the city is a beautifully preserved, magnificent UNESCO World Heritage Site was unexpected and most welcome icing on the cake.

The sanctuary of the Church of Our Lady is open to the public for viewing, and like so many venerable European churches, it is impressive in and of itself. This church, however, has a part of its ground floor set aside as a museum that, if I am not mistaken, I paid €10 to enter. There was virtually nobody about when I walked around; I enjoyed an almost private viewing of the Michelangelo masterpiece. Given the crowds that often surround works by well-known artists, I was both surprised and grateful to have some quiet time in the presence of genius.

Medieval Gothic Extravagance

The exterior of the Basilica of the Holy Blood, next to Bruges City Hall in Burg Square, does not really look much like a church from the outside. There were people, obviously of the tourist persuasion, walking up a few stairs and through an entrance way; I was curious and followed them in. Inside, I saw a sign identifying the place at the foot of more stairs. I headed up and eventually walked into the remarkable main chapel, the Gothic style of which is somewhat unlike anything I have seen in the many churches I have visited over the years. Apparently, the church is home to a relic of the Holy Blood that a couple of bozos brought back from the Holy Land at some point. Make whatever you want of that. The church was built in the 12th century.

A Walk Through Historic Bruges

On my first morning in Bruges, I set off at just past 7:00 am to walk to the center of the old city. I soon came upon the enormous 115.6m high tower of the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady. Construction of the Gothic church began in the 13th century and was completed in the 15th century. The brickwork tower is the second highest such structure in Europe (or the third, depending on which source one chooses to believe). Whether second or third, the massive tower dominates its surroundings.

Bruges is a small Belgian city of about 120,000 people located on the North Sea in the northwest of the country near the Dutch border. The center of Bruges is part of a sizeable UNESCO World Heritage Site of some 430 hectares. My plan was to walk from my hotel near the southern end of the oval-shaped Site to the Markt or Market Square, about 1 kilometer away in the heart of historic old Bruges.

The Belfry of Bruges is the centerpiece of the Market Square. The tower, a mere 83 meters high was built in 1240, but has been damaged by fire and repaired several times since then.

I will have more about Bruges in the days to come.

Neo-Gothic Splendor, Amsterdam

I booked a ticket online to visit Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum at 9:00 am on 9 June, my first full day in Amsterdam. The museum was a couple of clicks from my hotel along the Singel canal, so I set out around 7:00 to walk on a beautiful Tuesday morning.

About half way to the museum I was nearing the point where I would turn off the Singel when I came across the Roman Catholic De Krijtberg Church. The Neo-Gothic church with its two towers dominates this stretch of the canal. There has been a church on this site since 1654; the building pictured here, formally named the Church of Saint Francis Xavier, was opened in 1881.

The Ribe Cathedral, Denmark

A number of online travel guides bill Ribe, a town on Denmark’s west coast with a few more than 8000 inhabitants, as Denmark’s oldest town. This is very likely the case as Ribe was already a center of commerce and trade early in the 8th century during the age of the Vikings, and people have lived in the village continuously since then.

With its beautifully preserved and restored buildings in a quiet village setting, today Ribe is a popular tourist destination for Danes, Germans, and other Europeans. The Ribe Cathedral sits at the center of the old town square and dominates its surroundings. The first church in Ribe, built of wood, was founded in 860 and apparently at that time a community of Christians lived together in Ribe with the pagan Vikings. The first stone church on the site was completed in the 12th century. Begun as a Roman Catholic church, today the cathedral is part of the Church of Denmark, which I think is a flavor of the Lutheran denomination. If Wikipedia is any guide, the history of the cathedral, from inception to today, is a tale of sectarian strife, conflict, and mayhem, the bread and butter of religion as far as I am concerned, accompanied by fires and other natural disasters.

Be that as it may, I readily admit that I am fascinated with church architecture. The amount of thought, creative energy, devotion, and monumentally difficult labor that went into building and adorning ancient and medieval churches is downright astonishing.

The Pink Church, Saigon

The Tan Dinh Church (Nhà thờ Tân Định) is a Saigon landmark located along Hai Ba Trung, as that street runs through downtown, making its way from the Kieu Bridge to the Saigon River. The Roman Catholic church was built by the French and completed in 1876 at a time when Vietnam was divided into three colonies, all part of French Indochina. Today, it belongs to the Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City.

The church was painted pink in 1957, or so Wikipedia tells us. Although Tan Dinh Church is surely the best known pink church in the country, the nickname could also be applied to the Catholic cathedral in Da Nang, which was also painted the same shade of pink at some point. I have no idea where this color scheme comes from. I cannot recall seeing any pink Catholic churches elsewhere in the world.

This photo was taken in June of 2025. I’ve made several passes at Tan Dinh Church during various visits to Saigon, and this is the first image I am happy with. I’m shooting from the second floor patio of a coffee shop across the street, and as the clock on the church notes, it is just past 5:30 on an early summer afternoon. The sun is behind some thin clouds near the horizon; while there is plenty of light available, it is diffused and softened by the clouds in a way that matches up nicely with the pastel palette of the church. As always, the sensor on the mirrorless Nikon Z7 II does an admirable job of capturing the scene.

St. Nikolaus Church, Innsbruck, Austria

I spent an October day in Innsbruck, Austria, a chance to relax in between larger, more demanding travel venues. The small city is beautiful, featuring plenty of scenic vistas provided by the Tyrolean Alps, more monuments to the Hapsburgs, and good food and beverages. I did little more than wander around for a day, but was in town long enough to get this postcard cliche shot of a lovely Gothic church in late afternoon light with the rugged Alps in the background.

Sunset on the Final Day in Prague

The Church of Our Lady before Týn is on the east side of Old Town Square; it’s Gothic towers were directly opposite the sun that was soon to set in the west. St. Nicholas’ Church, pictured below, is on the north side of the Square; the light on its facade was a subdued gleam, not the intense glow of the other church. The next morning I would leave Prague on a train headed to Krakow in Poland. The magnificent sunset on my final evening in Prague was a wonderful send off.