We found the shop while searching for handmade chocolate sheep. Bruges was littered with chocolatiers, souvenir shops, and Christmas stores, with shiny and glittery things meticulously placed in well decorated display windows. I consider myself very lucky to have found this little gem amidst all that.
The small door of the shop opening to the street was well hidden, and practically covered with a curtain of old postcards. I did not expect much. I had walked into many of these old postcard stores while wandering around Amsterdam, and was not particularly impressed with the selection. I finger through them anyway, and gradually become impressed. The postcards were older, black and white photos with serrated edges printed on paper soft to the touch. Bruges’ old town has long been on the Unesco list and well preserved, the scenery hasn’t changed much from the days when these photos were taken. But the buildings from hundreds of years ago evokes less sense of time’s passage than the fading ink of these postcards. There’s history that makes it onto plaques and textbooks, and then there are stories that only linger in people’s hearts.
As I dig through the stacks of haphazardly arranged postcards, I come up with one that had already been written on. It was in French, and my travel mate was kind enough to translate for me. The note starts with “Ma Cherie Lusanne,” and involves an impending visit and bringing a bottle of wine. Ah, the days when visits were announced by post and eagerly awaited on and prepared for. I sometimes long to live in the days when we did not have so much to do and took much more pleasure in whatever it is we do end up doing. I find another one on a pale blue notecard, post marked June 23, 1903. I decided to not find out what it said, choosing to construe my own beautiful romantic stories instead.
I spent so long at the door that I didn’t even have much time to explore the inside. There were papers everywhere, posters, books, stacked in disarray waiting for the patient and bored tourist to dig through. As we were late for an appointment I hurriedly paid for my selection of 4 postcards, and asked the owner where he gets his amazing collection. A cheerful man with silver hair and gold rimmed glasses, he laughed and answered, “everywhere!”, and hands me my postcards, in an envelope from the 2001 grand international award of postcards.
I regret not having made it back to the shop during the rest of my trip. I think I would have enjoyed a longer treasure hunt, and even more so, a chat with the eccentric man who collects papers from the past. I kept the two postcards with strangers’ stories and sent out the other two, slightly dismayed at the printed stamp that did not quite go with my aged paper. I wonder if they will reach their destination or end up lost, perhaps finding their way into a tiny shop like this one somewhere. Either way, I hope they’ll bring smiles to the people they reach, whether it’s next week, or in a hundred years time.
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