Top European Gardens and Parks to Visit – Koningin Astridpark in Bruges
I remember the first time I sat down with my other half to watch the film ‘In Bruges’ which stars Colin Farrell (yummy), Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. My mother-in-law bought it for us as a Christmas present and thought it would be the perfect film to watch on a Sunday.
When we first started to watch it, I thought that the film wasn’t going to be very good but boy was I wrong! It was absolutely brilliant and very funny. For those of you who have not yet seen it, I won’t spoil it for you but the film is basically about two hit men who have been told by their boss to lay low in Bruges for two weeks due to an assassination that went terribly wrong by newcomer Ray (Farrell). I can’t really tell you anymore as I don’t want to ruin it for you but if you’re like me and are impatient then go to IMBD.com to find out more.
Image sourced from factoidz.com
Since watching the film, we have always said that we wanted to go. Last April I found that my other half had bought tickets to Bruges and got so excited that we were going, I started to do a bit of shopping online. I didn’t mention it to him as I thought he would be surprising me with them on our anniversary as he never mentioned about the tickets. A week later, whilst round his mum’s for her birthday meal, she was opening her birthday cards in front of us, and when she opened our card, out fell a piece of paper. Needless to say, the tickets wern’t actually for us, they were for his mum. I was absolutely devastated.
Since then, I have been dropping major hints to him about Bruges. When I say major hints, I mean saying “I want to go to Bruges” directly to his face as I don’t want to take any more chances.
When I was having my little online shopping trip, I did some research about Bruges itself and the best places to visit and found this. Koningin Astridpark – Queen Astrid Municipal Park.
Image sourced from Virtualtourist.com
As soon as I started to read about it, I fell in love with it and so desperately want to see it, and I hope after reading this, it does the same for you! I also found out that it was featured in the film as well!
The park is situated in the centre of Bruges and is surrounded by urban housing estates but for centuries, the park was originally owned by the Franciscan monastery which was home to the Recollets (friars) who used to go the garden to quietly meditate and they grew their own food there as well.
Unfortunately, in 1796, the French gained control over the Belgium government and after changing the laws, all religious communities perished which resulted in having the monastery demolished and the garden became private property.
In 1850 after much discussion, the city of Bruges eventually bought back the 7 acres for 50,000 francs to build the Magdalena church, extend the prison and to construct a public park.
Image sourced from Panoramio.com
A year later, the architect Egidius Rosseels from Leuven was given the task to design the garden. Because of its relatively small size, Rosseels thought of an ingenious design to help create the illusion of the park being bigger than what it actually was by introducing new lawns, strategically placed trees and a rather big pond in the centre of the garden to help give it dimensions in height. Many of the trees are Silver Maples, Catalpas, Copper Beeches, White Willows and much more. His design for the garden was heavily influenced by the English 18th century gardens.
7 years later, after Rosseel started to create this garden, a bandstand was placed near the pond and is still used today.
The dense plantation which surrounds the garden, helps to create the illusion of the park being very secluded, so when you walk through the park on the winding paths, you almost forget that you’re in the city centre.
The garden has had many titles in the past such as Court of Recollets or Garden of the Franciscan, after the Franciscan monastery and its friars. It was also known as the ‘Botaniek Court’ (Botanical Garden) or simply ‘The Public Court’ for a long time until the death of Queen Astrid in 1935 to which the townsfolk in Bruges decided to name the garden Queen Astrid Municipal Park.
Image sourced from Cut Caster
Now I know this particular park is not as high profile or even on a big scale as some of the other parks and gardens I have blogged about, but even the little parks need to be mentioned! So I hope that this has either influenced you to go and see this park or at least visit Bruges as the film describes it as a fairytale.
Come back next week to read my final blog in this series of Top European Garden and Parks to Visit!
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