It sort of seems like cheating, to me, to take pictures of places that basically exist
only to have pictures taken of them, but I did go to two such places, and it would have been pretty silly
not to have taken pictures while I was there. The two were of slightly different types.
The first was Bruges. Bruges was a thriving port, manufacturing town and artistic center in the
14th and 15th centuries. Then the river silted up, and the gentry mothballed the place and took off. As a result
of the ensuing long neglect, my guide book glibly asserts, Bruges is one of the best-preserved medieval cities
in Europe.