In Bruges... and also Brussels

Well, we are now back in Canada and our European adventure has come to an end. I still have one last trip to tell you about though, our trip to Belgium! Before leaving France, Dave and I had time to sneak in one last trip and since I have always wanted to go to Bruges, we decided to make that our final destination! I'm glad we did because it had everything we love: beer, chocolate, fries, waffles, beautiful scenery! It was so much fun! We loved it there and both agreed that it was a great last trip. We hope to go back to visit again one day!

Day One: May 17, 2013

In order to get to Bruges you have to fly to Brussels and then take a train to Bruges. The train is only about an hour and a bit long and then you are in Bruges! It's a nice train ride too. We got into Bruges in the evening and walked the short distance from the train station to our Bed & Breakfast to check in. I recommend walking because it gives you a chance to see some of the beautiful old buildings on your way. We found our B&B with no problems and it was in a great location right off the main town square! Bruges is pretty small, so most of the sights are in walking distance and being in the centre of town was a great base. After checking in we got ourselves ready for dinner at a restaurant called Ribs & Beer. I had heard of this restaurant on Tripadvisor and it had a lot of good reviews so I had made reservations for us that night. Who would have thought that Bruges would have some of the best ribs I've ever had. We both ordered the all you can eat rib meal and it was delicious! They had several different flavours and, between us, we tried them all! They really meant all you can eat too, you can have as many servings as you like, but I could only manage to fit in one and a bit. The ribs come with salad and fries too. And, of course, we washed it all down with a delicious Belgian beer!

Our cute room at the B&B

One of the common areas in the B&B

Another common room

Windy staircase up to our room

Ribs & Beer!

Dave drinking his Bruges Zot

Me drinking my Bruges Zot

Mmmmm unlimited ribs

 After dinner we walked around the main square for a bit. It was neat to see things all lit up at night. We then headed over to a little bar I had heard about called De Garre. This bar is hard to find if you don't know where it is, but it's worth the hunt because they have a rare beer called "Tripel Van de Garre" that is delicious. It's an 11% beer that is quite strong but very good. They serve it with cheese too! I love cheese, especially when it's free. The bar is located down a little alley way and behind an unmarked door. Inside is a really cool bar and we had a great night trying some of the beers and relaxing after our day of travel. After we decided to call it a night since we had a big day of sight seeing ahead in the morning.

The entrance and alley to get to De Garre...a hidden gem

This beer was soooo good

The inside of De Garre

Day Two: May 18, 2013 

The next day we woke up bright and early because we had a lot to fit in. Luckily, Bruges is pretty small, so if you are organized enough you can see most of the main sights in a day. We started with breakfast at the B&B, which was pretty good considering it was included in our stay. There was Kaiser rolls, croissants, meat, cheese, yogurt, fruit, and even cake. We also had tea and coffee.  The B&B was very nice and I would recommend it for anyone because of it’s location and price. However, the only downfall was the shower haha. It had literally no water pressure, but Dave and I had a pretty good system of using water bottles to rinse out our shampoo haha. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.  

After breakfast and showers we headed out on the town. First stop was the Belfry, which is the large bell tower in the centre of town (you may remember it from the movie In Bruges).  We got there early enough that we skipped the line to get up and it wasn’t too crowded on the narrow stairs. The view is worth the climb, as you can see all of Bruges and it is beautiful! 

Dave and I in front of the Belfry

The city centre view from the top of the Belfry

Bruges from the top of the Belfry

The next stop was the canal boat tour. There are canals that run all through Bruges and there are several boat tours set up along different points of the canal. They all do the same route, so we found one without a line that needed two more passengers and were able to go on our tour right away! This was good luck, as later in the day the lines were quite long. I recommend going in the morning to avoid the rush! We also lucked out because we got front row seats, which made for good pictures. Of course, I was seated right behind the driver, so he kept joking around with me and calling me “Princess Ellen” the whole time, but it was all in good fun! The boat tour is a great way to see all of Bruges, and it is neat to be riding around on the canal. There are some really neat views from the water.

View from the boat tour

View from under one of the canal bridges on the boat tour

After our boat tour, we headed down to the “De Halve Maan” Brewery for a tour and beer tasting. There used to be several breweries located in Bruges, but De Halve Maan is the only one remaining. It was cool to see how the beer is made and the view from the roof was beautiful! But, the best part was tasting the beer at the end! Belgians really know how to make a good beer!

Dave in front of the brewery

View from the top of the brewery

After we headed down to the Church of Our Lady to see the famous Madonna and Child sculpture made by Michelangelo.  At this point my stomach was grumbling so we went into a waffle shop to try some famous Belgian waffles. I also couldn’t resist ordering a massive hot chocolate made with REAL Belgian chocolate. They give you a huge cup of hot milk and a saucer of chocolate and you mix it yourself! It was all delicious, but probably a bad idea to order them together as they were very rich. We ended up feeling like we were in a chocolate coma haha. So much sweetness. Very delicious though and it was a nice break from touring. After eating what we could of our waffles and drinking our hot chocolates we waddled back out to finish our tour of Bruges. We headed to St. Salvator Cathedral and had a look inside, it was very beautiful. Then we headed by a famous chocolate shop called Dumon, which makes hand crafted Belgian chocolates. I quickly forgot about my chocolate coma from earlier and bought a mixed box of chocolates. It was sooooo delicious and all the chocolates were so beautiful. 

The Madonna and Child

Giant hot chocolates

This is my crazy chocolate face

The after math

Me in front of Dumon

Chocolates on display

Mmmm top layer of chocolates

Second layer of our chocolates

Bottom layer of our chocolates

After dropping off our chocolates at the hotel, we headed back out to do some more exploring. The next stop was The Basilica of the Holy Blood. This church is best known for its famous relic, a vial containing a cloth with the blood of Jesus. The church was very neat inside and the vial was displayed in a glass case up on an altar. We stood in line to walk up the altar and see the vial. You couldn’t really take a picture up close, but we tried our best to take a snap from a distance. 

The outside of the church

The altar with the vile

A picture of the vile

Next stop was the Lace Museum. This is a small museum which displays some pretty impressive works of Belgian lace. There is even a room where they do lace demonstrations. We saw some very old woman making lace and it was impressive how fast they can work. The museum wasn’t anything special, but the lace demonstration was really neat to see. I was hoping to purchase some authentic Belgian lace to bring back with me, but I didn’t see anything that I loved in the gift shop. If you do want authentic Belgian lace though, this is apparently the place to get it. A lot of gift shops sell lace, but most of them aren’t actually Belgian. The lace in the gift shop at this museum is actually made by the old Belgian ladies on site. 

One of the lace makers, working on her lace

Some of the handmade  lace for sale in the gift shop

Right beside the Lace Museum, is an old church called the Jerusalem Church. We went inside and discovered that it’s actually the same church were a scene from the movie In Bruges was filmed. The church was very small, but really cool inside. On our way back to the hotel we walked by the last remaining windmills in Bruges. They were all very pretty and you can actually climb up to the top of some of them, which was really quite high, steep, and a bit terrifying haha. But, the view was worth it. 

Inside the church

Another view in the church

One of the windmills

Me, holding on for dear life as I climbed up the steep windmill (it was scary!)

View from the top of one of the windmills

 At this point we were exhausted from our busy day, so we made our way back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner reservations at Bierbrasserie Cambrinus. If you are ever in Bruges I highly recommend this restaurant, just make sure to make a reservation as it’s very popular. The food was fantastic and they have a beer menu that is the size of a small novel and contains hundreds of different beer varieties. We had a hard time choosing which beers to order. I had read some reviews before hand and got a tip that they have a very rare beer at this restaurant called Trappist Westvleteren. Apparently, this beer is very rare as it’s made by monks at a small monastery and they only make so many bottles of it. It is also supposed to be very good. Dave and I decided to start with this, so I ordered the Westvleteren 8 and he ordered the Westvleteren 12. The waiter thought we were very knowledgeable about our beers and approved of our decision and I got to smugly pretend I was a beer connoisseur , even though I really just read about it on the internet haha. The beer was delicious, I think we liked the 8 better, as it was slightly less strong. The bottle was really cool too, totally unmarked , the only identifier was the cap on the top.  For dinner I ordered the Flemish Carbonades , which was a melt in your mouth beef dish. It was delicious! Dave ordered  a chicken beer stew that was also quite delicious. We also got an order of Belgian fries with our meal , served with mayo of course (the Belgian way!).  After dinner we stuck around for awhile and ordered a few more beers. The beers were really cool here because each one is served in a special glass for that type of beer. We tried to order ones with the coolest glasses. Dave had a Kwak and I had a Corne, which was literally served in a horn. We had great plans to head out on the town some more, but after such a busy day exploring all of Bruges, we were exhausted. So we headed back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

In front of the restaurant

The beer bible!

Our first order, the rare Westvleteren 8

And the Westvleteren 12

Delicious

In my happy place

The delicious Flemmish Carbonade with apple sauce

Dave's chicken stew

Belgian fries and mayo

Cool Kwak glass

The Corne glass

Drinking out of a horn is fun!

Day Three: May 19, 2013 

Bruges is so small and beautiful that we were able to see most of it in one day, but before leaving for our train the next day we had to make a few more stops. First stop was the fry hut in front of the Belfry. You can’t go to Belgian without getting authentic Belgian fries, and this was the place to get them. You can order all sorts of toppings on the fries, but we went with the traditional mayo and ketchup as well. The fries were twice fried and nice and crunchy on the outside, but soft and fluffy on the inside. They were delicious.  After our snack, we did one last walk around Bruges. It was such a sunny day and Bruges is so beautiful that we didn’t want to leave.  On our way to the train we walked through a quiet park that is also on the grounds where the nuns live. It was very peaceful.  We popped into a church on the site, and were able to see one of the nuns actually ringing the church bell manually by a rope.  It was neat to see.  After our walk, it was time to catch the train back to Brussels. Our flight wasn’t until the evening, but since we had seen most of Bruges, we decided to make the most of our trip to Belgium by taking in the sights in Brussels as well. 

The fry hut

Mmmm Belgian fries are amazing

Beautiful sights in Bruges

One of the parks

The nun ringing the bell

Another park

Beautiful Bruges

Beautiful

First stop was the centre of the city. The buildings were beautiful and we walked around exploring.  We also went into a few churches along the way. And, of course, you can’t go to Brussels without seeing the famous fountain of the little boy peeing. This fountain is very famous and was even stolen once. Now it is under heavy surveillance. It was quite crowded near the fountain, but we were able to snap a quick picture in front of it. 

The town hall in the city centre

The busy city centre

The famous peeing statue

Next, we  walked up to the big arches at the Parc du Cinquantenaire, which was quite nice. There also happened to be a Medieval Festival on right behind the arches, so we explored there for a bit. Then we slowly made our way back to the train station, stopping at some churches and other parks along the way. Brussels is a nice city, but I would recommend going to Bruges over Brussels if you had to choose just one place in Belgium to visit. Bruges has a lot more to do and is just so beautiful. 

One of the churches on our walk

The arches

Medieval Festival on the other side of the arches

Another church and beautiful garden

Me with the flower garden in the background

After a busy weekend, we headed back to the train station and took a train to the airport for our flight back to Toulouse. It was a jam packed weekend, but we fit in a lot and I loved our trip to Bruges. It is a really beautiful city with excellent beer and food and so much to do. I would love to go back again.

And, that was our last trip in Europe. A few weeks after we were on a plane back to Canada. It was a year full of adventures that I will never forget. But, Dave and I have both caught the travel bug now and we plan on continuing our travels in the future. We saw so much on our year abroad, but there is still so much to see and so much we would love to revisit. I can’t believe our European adventure is over, but I am glad to be back in Canada with our family and friends and am looking forward to our next adventure, the wedding this summer. We both can’t wait until we can travel again. It was a wonderful year! 

Until next time...

Au revoir