In Brugge

Because the hostel made us wait until 4 to check in yesterday and there wasn’t a secure location to put our bags (they suggested we leave them in the common room and they would “keep an eye on them” but we didn’t feel that was safe), we didn’t do much apart from going out for dinner at a restaurant called Bierbrasserie Cambrinus after checking in.  Although the food we had wasn’t as good as Le Fin de Siecle in Brussels, it was decent and there was a huge selection of 400 beers to choose from – the drink menu is one inch thick and I had to spend 10 min reading it to decide!  It was a nice relaxing start to our time in Brugge and today we found out what Brugge really has to offer…

We started today by walking along the canals which make Brugge famous for being “The Venice of the North.”  We considered taking a canal boat ride, but after checking out a few different boat companies we decided it would be better to just continue walking – the boat rides aren’t cheap and only last an hour and the canals tend to smell like gasoline from that level because there are so many boats running along them!  Walking turned out to be a better option because we were able to stop and take pictures and check out little shops and restaurants along the way.

Since we were unable to decide on a place to eat, we decided to delay lunch and walked over to the windmills on the eastern perimeter of city center when we finished walking around the canals.  Only one of the windmills, called Sint-Janshuysmolen, was operating at the time so walked over to it to check it out up close.  While seeing something so old (built in 1770) still operating in its location was cool, I’m not sure there was a point in walking up the small hill to get to the base of the windmill – the view from across the street was just as cool and they charge you to go inside to see the small interior. 

We headed back to town center to look for somewhere to eat lunch again and ended up browsing several chocolate stores along the way.  I considered picking up some hand-made Belgian chocolates for my dad, who’s basically a chocoholic, but then I realized it would be a while before I could get them home to him and they might melt and/or spoil in the meantime so I decided not to bother (sorry dad!).  We did, however, buy a bag of rock candy when we came across a store called Confiserie Zuccher, which we noticed because there was a huge line-up to go into the store because people were taking pictures of them making the candy by hand and getting a free sample piece.  At the front of the store I saw that they were selling bags of mixed end pieces of candy they had made for special orders (e.g. weddings) for €4.80 a bag or three bags for €11.  I wanted to get three bags because I love candy, but Paul said it was ridiculous to buy three bags so I settled with one, but as soon as we walked and ate a few pieces, we both started wishing we had picked up three bags – this might be the best candy we’ve ever had!  I’m going to be so sad when this one little bag runs out…

After a late pasta lunch and some time around Market square, in the heart of the city, we headed back to the hostel to get ready to head to Amsterdam tomorrow morning.  Brugge has been a lovely medieval city with lots of scenic spots that make great photos.  I sort of wish we had done what Allie and Ryan did and just caught a train here for a daytrip from Brussels so we wouldn’t be staying at the rather crappy hostel, but I’m glad we made a stop here and our time has been very enjoyable.  Now we head to the much anticipated Amsterdam (a.k.a. sin city) – hopefully we can stay out of trouble!