I had Bruges planned for a while now. However, seeing as how falling 15 feet and breaking bones is not convenient for traveling, I had to postpone my visit. It was originally supposed to be the day after my fall, however I decided to save it for when Andrew came to visit!
Andrew got in the Friday night, and after some debate whether we should go on the weekend (aka the next day Saturday or during the week) we decided to go Saturday. There would be more to see on the weekend and my ticket was valid for weekend travel only. Done and done. Man oh man was that a good idea to go. And the brilliant thing is because it is only a day trip - no need for luggage. Yesssssss
Nice and close - it took about 1.5 hours to get there - just enough time for quick snooze on the train and to get our bearings back. I felt bad for Andrew - poor kid got in the night before at around 7ish our time, and then back up at 7:30am our time....about 1:30am back in Canada. Super. He was thrilled. But seeing as the movie "In Bruges" is up there on his list of favorites, it was pretty cool knowing he was going to see some of the same monuments from the movie.
I was told by my roommates that Bruges was a perfect little city. No garbage, nice people, clean streets and beautiful buildings. That was the understatement of the year. It was perfect. My little cookie cutter houses as I called them, that all looked similar, were even prettier than in pictures I had seen.
Mind you, since we were in such a rush to get there in the morning, we didn't eat breakfast. For anyone who knows me; I need breakfast. I do not function without it. I need it. It's the best part of my mornings. So upon arrival, Andrew decided he wanted a waffle. Great. Let's find one. Now in France, I can read the french menus, but I cannot read Flemish. Right. Challenge One. I was the appointed language guru of the week since I spoke English and French, which was fine by me, but in this case a bit challenging. I ended up picking up 2 pasteries of sorts in a shop, which was fine, but no waffle as requested.
Our day was perfectly low-key. We walked around and admired all the buildings, the music, the water (super cute bridges by the way) and the beer. Yes, of course, we found a little shop with the classic Belgian beers, and who could resist? It was lunch time and we were all over that like a fat kid with cake. I mean that in the nicest way possible. So we tested out the beers and of course - they were great. It was a nice day too -started off with a bit of snow, but slowly the sunshine came out.
It really was a fairytale city.
The thing I loved about this past week in general was that when Andrew and I walked we had adventures. We saw a cute road and would take it. We saw a tower and would venture to find it. We always said "maybe we will come back to this shop for lunch" and would never remember where it was because we kept walking off the main streets. It always worked out perfectly though. We found this quaint little place for lunch, and it was simple, sandwiches with fries, he had a beer and I had a coke. Delicious though. One problem: I swear in Europe there is no heat in the washrooms. Like honestly. Deathly cold. You nearly freeze to death. Porcelain throne of ice is more like it. Unreal. After we recovered some warmth back we ventured on some more.
We had the plan to take the 3:30pm train back, because well thats the time we had heard the train goes back. We didn't really check, but we had heard it was 3:30 or 7. Right. Well 3:30 would be perfect cause we would arrive back at 5pm.
Oh - almost forgot about the swans. We passed a "swan park" it seemed. There were tons! So neat! I can't really say I have ever seen a swan park in Canada....not so much. So that was really neat! It was the perfect cap off to our day. We managed to catch the train back no problem and we were out cold on the train. It had been a busy day filled with walking around, food and beer. And don't forget admiring my cookie cutter houses.
A great first day, very simple and smooth. Oh Bruges.
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