Smedenpoort

This guide to the Smedenpoort gate in Bruges begins with the bronze skull hanging above the passage, and the betrayal it was cast to punish: in June sixteen ninety-one a city official named Francois Vander Straeten cut a deal to let French troops through this very gate. It follows his arrest, execution, and the council's decision to turn his head into a warning displayed above the gate itself. Then, around the time of the French Revolution, the skull vanished without explanation. Stand beneath the passage and look up at the turrets flanking the gate on either side.