In Bruges

Saturday, February 23 2008

We got up early on Saturday morning to for a quick weekend trip to Bruges which is in Belgium. We took the 7:00 am train so that we arrived in Brussels around 10:00am, where we picked up another train to have us in Bruges by around 11:30. We checked into our hotel and stashed our luggage, then had lunch at L'estaminet, a local place recommended by our hotel as not being a touristy place to eat. The food was good, I had a Croque Monsieur and Tami had a Toast Maison. The food was really good, and we even had a local beer with lunch to get us started (we are in a place known for it's beer after all).

Tami in front of the canals

After lunch, we walked around town a bit and saw the sights, going through a section of town called the Burg and then over to the Market, which is the central square. The Belfort is also located there, and it is a tower that has 47 bells. You can go up to the top of the bell tower, but it is 366 circular stairs. Unfortunately, we were not smart enough to heed the warnings and we made the trek up, but we were glad we did. We were at the top of the tower when it chimed the hour. Fortunately it was 2:00 and not 12:00 because it was loud.
A Statue in the Burg


A view of the Market

After making our way down all of the steps, we were a little rubber legged, but still had so much to see. We walked around the town, checking out a bunch of shops. We found a really cool tea and coffee shop that had a lot of different teas, so we bought a few to take back with us. We then took the long way over to the Chocolate Museum to see how they made chocolate. It was alright, but honestly we liked the demo in Brussels better, but we didn't turn down the free sample at the end! We'd been on our feet for way too long, so we found a little tea shop and had tea and a selection of mini cakes. Having rested, we headed over and took the canal boat tour through town, then walked around town a little bit more, buying some chocolate and looking at the Bottle Shop, a store that has hundreds of different beers, but we didn't buy any (yet.) Instead, we headed over to 't Brugsbeertje, a bar that has over 300 different types of Belgium beer on their menu. We tried some, although Tami got a Kriek beer that was sour which she wasn't terribly impressed with. After that, we headed back to the Bottle Shop to load up and ended up eating at a restaurant in the Market area. The food was excellent (I had Flemish Beef Stew and Tami had Schnitzel plus we split an appetizer of Mussels,) but honestly the place was a bit underhanded and a rip off. Even though the food was great, I would never go back to that place.

Tami on the canal boat


View from the canal boat