The fairytale beauty of Bruges

Published: October 24 2009 00:44 | Last updated: October 24 2009 00:44

A shifting coastline and the economic depression it wrought may seem unlikely preconditions for a tourist industry. But had the channel that connected Bruges to the coast not silted up in the 16th century, so compromising the burgeoning city’s status as a port, it might never have been lost in the time warp that has reserved its extraordinary stock of gothic monuments and step-gabled canal houses.

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