Cobblestones and brick. Moss and violets. Bruges used to be a dreamer’s city, with daffodils and tulips in window boxes and weeping willows whose boughs skimmed the water of the canals that vein the city. A fairy-tale land of medieval buildings and winding narrow roads, as well as shimmering water and bridges where couples stood to cast wishes into the air, the reflection below them a glossy, inverted world of red-tile rooftops and trees and white clouds scattered in cornflower-blue skies.
