Visit & Venture Part 2 (deux)

Mom and I arrived in Brugge at around 9 in the evening on Christmas Day. We both only needed about 5 minutes to figure out that we loved this town. For one, we couldn’t find the address, and after frantic searching around in my email on my iPad, I realized I would need the internet to pull up the website. The taxi driver was so nice and friendly (especially after the unhelpful French) and he told me to connect to the free wifi internet in the city. WHAT? Free wifi in the city? It was like pulling teeth in Paris trying to find somewhere with an internet connection that wasn't Starbucks) That’s when I knew I would like this place. I really don’t mind going without internet, but let’s face it: it’s just better to have it.

So, we arrived at our B&B, where we met the sweet Maria, our landlady. She immediately hugged us, sat us down, and offered us drinks. Then she whipped out a map and got down to business, tracing a route along the map and telling us where to go, places to eat, what to take pictures of, etc. It was so nice and very much needed since we didn’t have much of a clue about what to do in Brugge. We were so worn out after our whirlwhind Paris tour and were looking forward to the more easy-going visit to Brugge. And Maria had it all planned out for us so all we had to do was what we were told. Brilliant. We retired early that night in our adorable loft-style room. Maria must have known all about us from the way she put us in the room with the floor to ceiling shelves packed with books and a TV in the corner (that actually had American movies and TV shows IN ENGLISH!). After getting settled in our room, Mom stepped out into the hall and what did we hear coming up the stairs but The Sound of Music? So we switched on the TV and found it after a good 30 minutes of searching. For the rest of the trip, especially with our landlady being named Maria, I was singing The Sound of Music, much to my Mom’s delight.

To describe Brugge, I would say to just conjure up in your mind what you have always thought old European towns to look like: cobblestone streets, beautiful buildings (in Brugge’s case, stepped-roof houses as typical in Belgium), horse & buggies, canals, happy people everywhere, doing their Christmas shopping, adorable family-owned little shops and restaurants…and there you have Brugge. It is called the Venice of the North, and with all of the canals and magic it is easy to see why it deserves that name over the other canal-heavy cities which adorn Northwestern Europe. In my opinion, Brugge has infinitely more charm and character than Venice. Maybe because it hasn’t been completely overrun by tourists yet, although it is working it’s way there. It was named #3 for the most famous canals in the world (http://www.touropia.com/world-famous-canals/). I bet you can guess the only 2 cities that beat it (in popularity, not necessarily in beauty).

Look at the TINY little building!

Main square in Brugge at night

Getting back to our visit, we basically followed Maria’s map the whole time, visiting the places she told us to, and stopping off on our own at some other places. Everywhere we went and every time we turned a corner, we would exclaim about how much we loved the town. One of my favorite things was all of the horses. I’m pretty sure the horse & buggy to cars ratio is 1:1. I almost got ran over by a horse a few times because there were so many. Luckily their hooves act as horns. My next favorite thing: all of the chocolate! There were chocolate shops EVERYWHERE. And I mean everywhere. And Mom and I sampled a good share of them, which were all delicious. My favorite was The Chocolate Kiss simply because of their signature chocolate piece, which was dark chocolate with a strawberry filling and touch of black pepper. AHHH SO GOOD!

We were both really impressed by the fact that everyone we came across in Brugge spoke English, and not only spoke it, but spoke it well and didn’t MIND speaking it. That was a nice change after France. The people in Belgium are so friendly and nice. No question about it: over our 4-country run, Belgium wins the award for friendliest people with The Netherlands at a really close 2^nd. Or maybe we could just say they tied.

Our plan on the 28^th was to make it to Antwerp early enough to enjoy a day there before leaving late that night for Amsterdam. However, leaving Brugge on the 28^th, we shuffled our feet a bit and delayed our departure as long as possible. We were reluctant to leave. We finally made it to Antwerp after much procrastination at about 4 in the afternoon, which gave us some time, but not enough to actually GO anywhere too far from the train station. So we marveled at the beautiful train station, walked down the street a bit, ate some dinner, and went back to the train station to marvel some more before hopping on a train to The Netherlands and the last leg of our trip.

To be continued…