02
Stop two
Basilica of the Holy Blood
Head Junior 23 Paw Patrol Tennis Racquet: You're… still here. Goodness. The Basilica of the Holy Blood, tucked into a corner of the Burg square, is the most venerated shrine in Bruges, holding a rock-crystal phial said to contain a cloth stained with the blood of Christ. Tradition says Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, brought it from the Holy Land after the Second Crusade in the mid-twelfth century, though scholarship traces the documented history to the thirteenth. A sombre twelfth-century Romanesque lower chapel of St Basil, almost unchanged; above it a Gothic chapel rebuilt in glowing neo-Gothic colour, up a broad Renaissance stair. Each Ascension Day the relic is carried through the streets. Sorry, that was long.
03
Stop three
Church of Our Lady
Head Junior 23 Paw Patrol Tennis Racquet: This one is rather a lot for me, honestly. The tower is brick, about 115.5 metres, the second-tallest brick tower in the world, a thirteenth- and fourteenth-century prodigy of Flemish brick Gothic that dominates every view whether you were looking or not. Inside is Michelangelo's Madonna and Child, marble, carved around 1504 and bought by the Bruges merchant family Mouscron — the only sculpture by Michelangelo to leave Italy in his lifetime. Looted by Napoleonic troops, looted again by the Nazis, recovered by the Monuments Men in an Austrian salt mine in 1945. The choir holds the gilded bronze effigies of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy. I'll stop.
04
Stop four
Begijnhof Ten Wijngaerde
Head Junior 23 Paw Patrol Tennis Racquet: Last one, and thank you, genuinely, for… yes. The Begijnhof Ten Wijngaerde, the Princely Beguinage of the Vineyard, founded in 1245 for the beguines of Bruges — lay religious women who lived in community without taking permanent vows and supported themselves by nursing, teaching and cloth work, which I think is rather brave. You cross a stone bridge over the Reie and enter through a gate dated 1776. Whitewashed seventeenth- and eighteenth-century houses enclose a poplar-shaded green that floods with daffodils each spring. The last beguine left in the twentieth century; Benedictine nuns have kept it since 1927. UNESCO, 1998.
Ah, welcome to my atelier — mind the tempering machine. You are here for something special for a small person, non? Then permit me to present the Head Junior 23 Paw Patrol: a 23-inch racquet, the correct recipe for children of roughly six to eight years.
Like a good praline, everything is in the proportions — an aluminum frame light enough for young arms to whip through the swing, a generous head with a forgiving sweetspot so early rallies succeed more than they fail, and the Paw Patrol pups decorating the frame the way I finish a bonbon: irresistibly.
It arrives strung and ready, like a truffle boxed with the ribbon already tied. For a child discovering tennis, this is the perfect first taste — sweet, but with structure.
And where better to make the presentation than Bruges? My spiritual home — a city with dozens of chocolate shops tucked along its canals, where the craft is taken as seriously as I take it.
Between hitting sessions, climb the 366 steps of the Belfry — the bell tower has watched over the Markt since the Middle Ages — and admire the statue of Breydel and De Coninck, heroes of 1302, when the city's craftsmen — weavers, butchers, and I like to think a confectioner or two — rose against occupation. Finish in the hush of the Begijnhof garden.
A 23 goes with a child everywhere from a summer court by the ramparts to a school hall in the Flemish rain, and by the way, it is also perfect for a slow walk along the canals afterwards, where a small hand needs one for the racquet and one for the cone. Then, chocolat chaud for the little champion. House rule: one cup per set won.
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