Bruges in the News

Isn't it odd how you don't think about or hear about something or someone or some place, and then, all of a sudden, that's all you're hearing about?

Opera lovers know the Belgian city of Bruges as the setting of Korngold's opera Die Tote Stadt. And on the day that the film In Bruges, a crime caper starring Colin Farrell, opens, I come across this story in Le Monde about this dead, and otherwise unremarked-upon, city.

According to the news account, an American man, Jewish, an Auschwitz survivor, was refused service at a Bruges establishment because he was wearing a yarmulke. His attempts to find redress were rebuffed at several turns. After finally being reported in a Dutch magazine, the incident is now being investigated by Bruges' tourist office.

If Korngold's opera hadn't turned me off to the possibility of visiting Bruges, this story certainly does.