more beer and chocolate.... Bruges Day 2

Sunday, February 24 2008

The next day, we figured we could sleep in a bit longer than 4:30, so we slept in a bit and had breakfast at the hotel before heading out into town. The cool thing about Bruges is that there is a lot of medieval architecture around, so when you walk around you are always seeing new things. Whenever we went back to areas we'd been before, we always made sure to take different routes, going down alleys that we hadn't been down before because you always see something different and interesting. We walked around in the morning before everything opened up (it was Sunday after all), and ended up having a hot chocolate at De Proeverie. They bring you a cup of hot milk with a little bowl of melted chocolate on top that you dump into the milk and make your own hot chocolate. After we finished our chocolate, we went into an Art Gallery and then into the Diamond Museum. The most interesting thing in the Museum was a large robot called Boris that made synthetic diamonds. It apparently still works, but they only run it for special occasions, so we didn't get to see it.

This is one of the places that the canal boats leave from


Our Hot Chocolate

After the Museum, we walked over to the Minnewater section of town which was very beautiful, and then over to the Half Moon Brewery (Halve Maan). The tour was pretty cool, although it involved more stairs. *sigh* The best part however was the pint of Bruges Zot that we got at the end. We enjoyed our beer with a couple that was also from London. We then had lunch at a little tearoom called t' Eekhoetje.

Tami at Minnewater

We had decided to grab a few chocolates from several different chocolatiers to see who was the best, so we headed over to Dumons, which had been recommended by Rick Steve's. The chocolate was really good, and the people inside were very friendly. We then walked over to a jewelry store, but Tami didn't see anything she wanted (or that I could afford). Then we were close to the Market where you can pick up a horsedrawn carriage, so we decided to do that. The ride was nice and relaxing. After the ride, we went to the Frietkot, a frites (french fries) stand in the center of town that had amazing fries. After that, we decided to get a little culture, so went to the Church of Our Lady, where the highlight was a statue called Madonna and Child that was created by Michelango and is the only statue of his to leave Italy while he was alive.

Greg at the Half Moon Brewery

We got more chocolate from the Chocolate Line shop, then walked way out to the other side of town, where there was a bar where everyone was very friendly. We didn't get the name, but we were told to look for the large champagne bottles in the window. We found it, and the staff was very friendly. After that, it was a hunt to find a place to eat. Places were starting to close, but we ended up finding a place called Poules Moules that was open, had good food, and wasn't too expensive. As a bonus, the staff was really friendly as well. Even though we were pretty stuffed, our time was almost up and we hadn't had a belgium waffle yet, so we went to a place that was open and had one with banana's and chocolate. It was excellent, but we were so full when we were done. We ended up walking back to the hotel since we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch the train and get back before we had to work.

Tami being attacked by the horse