BelgiumStep outside Brugge’s train station and into the magical world of the city’s Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival, which runs until Jan. 16. In a 13,000-square-foot insulated tent chilled to a constant 21 degrees Fahrenheit, 40 international artists have carefully designed blocks of crystal-clear ice, some more than 30 feet tall, to create their visions based on the theme “Around the World.”
At the end of the exhibit, visitors can stop in the ice bar made entirely of ice and snow.
The show is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily including Christmas. Tickets cost 13 euros for adults, 8 euros for ages 3 to 12; free for those younger than 3. For details and photos, go to www.icesculpture.be. It has an English version.
EnglandFollow in the footsteps of Cistercian monks in Yorkshire on Sunday on the annual pilgrimage from Ripon to Fountains Abbey.
The route follows the trail of 13 monks who broke away from St. Mary’s Church in York to found their own abbey in 1132. They first journeyed to Ripon, where they spent Christmas. The next day, they continued on to the new site, which became Fountains Abbey and is now Britain’s largest monastic ruin.
Sunday’s pilgrimage begins at 9:30 a.m. with a service led by the bishops of Ripon and Leeds, followed by the four-mile walk to the abbey. Last year several hundred people participated. Learn more at www.fountainsabbey.org.uk.
