Bruges, Belgium  – The Grote Markt (“Big Market” square) was thronged with international tourists. In their midst were tour guides, easily spotted by the closed umbrellas, colourful flags and a bright red balloon that they held overhead. The guides were telling the tourists in Bruges, which in medieval times was the capital of the country of Flanders, about the historic ground under their feet.

“The city was once the richest in all of northern Europe,” Luise informed her tourist group from southern Germany.

“That was more than a half-millennium ago. The dukes of Burgundy ruled here then,” added historian Willy Debunderei. “Bruges was the most important of the Hanseatic League’s big trading posts and a transshipment centre for regionally produced cloth as well as grain, timber from the North and furs from Russia, just to name a few goods.”

Bruges owed its prosperity to a storm tide in 1134 that gave it direct access to the North Sea. When the inlet silted up around the end of the 15th century, merchants moved to Antwerp and Bruges fell into economic decline and poverty.

Visitors to Bruges today see no signs of the city’s era of want. Early last century, it was reconnected to the North Sea via a ship canal to the port of Zeebrugge.

Bruges’ historic city centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and Bruges was selected by the European Union in 2002 as a European capital of culture. The city’s well-preserved medieval centre includes the Belfry, City Hall on Burg square, the Beguinage and St John’s Hospital.

Many tourists take boat tours on Bruges’ canal network, which earned the city the nickname “Venice of the North.”

During the Middle Ages, the Belfry was a prominent sign of merchant class power. The bell tower was built in the mid-13th century as part of Cloth Hall, the main marketplace for Flemish cloth. “It rises 83 metres over the city and offers a magnificent view from the observation platform,” Debunderie lectured.

“So now we’ve got to climb 366 steps.”

Meanwhile, Luise gave her group a break. Some of the men made a beeline for the pubs to sample Belgium’s famous beer. The women headed for small shops selling a tempting assortment of fine chocolates. The prices, however, kept their purchases in check.

Bruges’ City Hall, which the city’s inhabitants call the Stadhuis and regard as one of their most outstanding buildings, was built between the late 14th and early 15th centuries and served as a model for other administrative structures in Flanders. It stands on Burg square, where the first count of Flanders, Baldwin I Iron-Arm, had a fortified castle (or “burg”) built in the 9th century.

Burg square is also the site of the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which preserves a fragment of cloth stained with what is said to be a drop of the blood of Jesus Christ. “It was built for a sacred relic that Flemish knights brought from the Holy Land after a crusade in the mid-12th century,” Debunderie related. “The relic is displayed during a large procession every year on Ascension Day,” falling this year on May 21.

Practically every corner of Bruges is steeped in history. Another attraction is the extensive Beguinage. Dating from the 13th century, the group of houses surrounding a garden was once home to the Beguines, a lay sisterhood of unmarried and widowed women living in devout seclusion and caring for the old and sick. Today the compound is a cloister for Benedictine nuns.

The Beguinage’s singularity prompted UNESCO to add it to the World Heritage list. It is open to the public. “Please remain quiet during the tour,” Luise admonished her charges.

Debunderie, meanwhile, headed toward to St John’s Hospital, which was built in the 12th century and is one of the oldest preserved hospital buildings in Europe. A medieval ward and apothecary chamber dating from the 18th century are among the things worth seeing.

“A gem of art history, though, is the museum there dedicated to German-born painter Hans Memling (1430-1494), who became the favourite painter of the city’s middle class,” Debunderie said. “Memling’s major works are on display here, including the St Ursula Shrine, a reliquary.”

Admirers of the Flemish Primitives are drawn to the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Jan van Eyck in the Groeninge Museum. Or art lovers visit the gothic Church of Our Lady with Michelangelo’s life- size marble statue Madonna and Child, the only work by the artist to make it across the Alps in his lifetime.

By the time Luise and her fellow tour guides returned their groups to the waiting buses, a romantic mood had descended on Bruges. The city’s cosy pubs beckoned …

Internet: www. visitflanders. com, www. brugge. be/internet/en/  (dpa)