Rosary Quay

This guide to Rosary Quay in Bruges questions its own name, tracing Rozenhoedkaai back past the popular story of rosary-bead stalls to a blunter earlier name, Zoutdijk, the Salt Dike, recorded here as far back as 1390. It follows the salt barges that once tied up and unloaded into the warehouses behind these stepped gables, the everyday cargo trade behind Bruges's most photographed corner. You'll hear how a nineteenth-century novelist later borrowed this same water for fiction. Stand at the bend in the canal for the view most photographs try to capture.