Up at 5:15am in the morning to catch a 7:30 train to Brugge -- finished packing an overnight bag and out the door -- have finally figured out the shortest way to the nearest Metro station. Of course, this would be the morning the ticket machines at the metro station decided to go on vacation. In Paris, you can buy passes lasting for a week, two weeks, three weeks or a month that allow unlimited use of the Metro system (averages about two dollars a day for the pass vs two dollars for a one way single ticket) -- we had purchased the passes a few days earlier and had been using them with no trouble -- this day, however, the gate machine refused to recognize them so we were left looking at the option of jumping over/crawling under the turnstile in full view of the security cameras or missing our train. Messed around for a while and finally got one pass to work -- ended-up using it for both of us and no one tackled us for doing so.
Six stops later, we arrived at the Metro stop nearest to the train station when the real fun began. The Parisian mentality about many things is very sexist -- as in, if you're a guy, you don't need a map or directions or a sign to find your way around -- you do it by "instinct" -- and, in Paris, the transportation systems were definitely designed by men! Once you get off the subway, there's a sign that reads "Trains" and an arrrow pointing down a hallway -- so you proceed down the hallway which after thirty yards splits in two directions -- no sign as to where the trains are -- if you choose wrong, you find that out fifty yards and four staircases later when you find yourself at a Metro line dead-end -- choose right and you're rewarded thirty yards later down that hallway with a sign on the wall again reading "Trains" -- repeat the proces for more times in a large Metro stop such as the one connecting to the train stations and you can have a "barrel" of fun! Throw in the added challenge that the stations are not two dimensional but three dimensional with four to six levels vertically and it gets to be real fun -- add in the tendency to have a sign pointing straight ahead at a "T-intersection" of hallways and it gets even better!! Adopted the strategy of just finding the most sets of stairs going up, figuring the trains had to be on the surface level -- eventually it worked!
Found our train, found our seats and enjoyed a Thalys high-speed train ride to Brussels, Belgum -- sometimes objects close-up were just a blur. Arrived in Brussels a little over an hour later where we had to make our first change of trains (nothing goes straight to Brugge). That's when it got even more interesting -- we were booked on train "430" to Ghent Sint Pieters except there was no "430" train so we found a train agent and asked what to do -- his advice -- "find a train you like and get on it". So we did -- don't know if that train even went to Ghent, but we arrived in Brugge without ever making our second change of train -- and no one cared! Strangest system. We even got there a little early.
Our original plan was to take a taxi to the bed and breakfast we were staying at, drop-off our backpack and then explore -- arriving early we decided to just jump-in to the exploring and promptly got lost! The center of Brugge is about a mile from the train station and instead of taking the main street, we headed-off into a lovely wooded park following a canal (or stream) for a ways then branching-off randomly left or right on various unmarked paths.
Ended-up hiking through a beautiful area that we would otherwise have missed (off the main paths) where there were still some original locks (used to raise and lower the water levels to prevent flooding and move canal boats) and the original lock-keepers house which at some point hundreds of years ago had been repositioned for use as an armory/gunpowder storage -- beautiful fifteen foot wide by forty foot high stone tower with windows and a turreted roof.
Eventually we "bounced" back onto one of the two main streets entering Brugge from the south and, it being around noon time, decided to find a place to eat -- aka, the nearest chocolate shop! We went in to look at the chocolates and instead, wound-up climbing a narrow, steep wooden staircase to a "tea room" above where they served lunch. It was like stepping back in time a hundred and fifty years -- all antiques, small tables with white tableclothes, low lighting -- tiny place, probably four or five tables sitting maybe a dozen or so people -- one other group of four was just finishing-up as we arrived and we ended-up sitting at a table with a small open window overlooking the narrow cobble-stoned street below where women of varying ages were riding vintage bicycles with wicker handlebar baskets -- and horse-drawn open carriages slowly clip-clopped down the street -- talk about a fairy tale scene!
Figuring we'd already worked-off the morning's croissants, we opted for desert crepes with chocolate syrup and real whipped cream to go along with our hot chocolates. The hot chocolate was not "Nestle" hot chocolate -- it was the real deal -- a huge cup of hot milk accompanied by a real chocolate cupcake wrapper shaped cup filled with real chocolate bits -- you decided how "chocolaty" things got by how many bits you dissolved in the milk -- both of us just dumped the whole thing into the milk, cup and all -- and, wow, was it chocolaty -- and good!!
We were the only people there for at least an hour and just sat, ate our crepes, watched people go by on the street below and talked -- it felt unreal, like in a movie. Finally struggled to our feet and carefully crept back down the steep stairs (the treds were so small, I literally had to go down sideways) and check-out the chocolates we had originally stopped in to look at.
Central Brugge is like a page out of a medieval fairybook -- the authentic old buildings, the houses, the narrow streets, the gothic stone churches with their steeples towering above, the stone arch bridges, the slow-moving water in the canals, the little "nooks and crannies" around every corner -- an absolutely wonderful place to visit! If there was a "downside" it was the huge number of tourists crowding some of the streets -- they pack the busloads in like there's no tomorrow. But after that last busload left around 5:00pm it was another world altogether -- you could squint your eyes, look around and it felt like you'd been transported back hundreds of years in time -- quiet, peaceful -- walking down the empty, winding cobble-stone streets in the evening was an amazing feeling.
In the afternoon, we walked around the central market square and surrounding streets -- the square has restaurants (large outdoor seating space) and a few shops on two sides and a church and museum on the other two -- the square itself is a wide-open cobble-stone paved area (maybe fifity by fifty yards). We got there just as a farmers' market was breaking down leaving just the tourists, the horses and carriages (beautiful horses and lovely carriages) and a fountain with a large statue, to occupy it.
We made it to the bed and breakfast we were staying at around 2:30-3:00, dropped off our pack and headed back out exploring. The house was on a traditional medieval street meaning the houses butted-up against each other with no space in between with triangle-stepped roofs (hard to explain, see the photos) and had won an award for the oddest named street in Belgium -- "Oude Zak" (meaning "old prick" in Flemish).
The owners, a young couple, she from Brugge and he from Paris, had three rooms they rented out -- ours was on the second floor and overlooked a small canal below flowing past the window -- complete with mama ducks and ducklings -- overhanging tree branches -- and a view of a church steeple just over the houses on the other side of the canal (maybe forty feet away). This B/B was outstanding -- had a hundred reviews -- ninety-nine were outstanding and one was excellent. When we arrived, Lynn greeted us with warm home-made pastries, juice and mineral water -- there were pastries already in the room -- she left pastries in the kitchen in case you got hungry in the middle of the night -- and breakfast was a full breakfast made from scratch just for us as we sat under a canopied table on a private patio, surrounded by flowers and green and literally two feet from the canal and the ducklings. Wow!!
It started sprinkling late in the afternoon of the first day and into the evening, adding to the atmosphere and chasing away most of the bus tourists. We walked around settling on dinner at one of the restaurants on the market square -- I went for the Flemish beef stew and Cindy had boeuf hatchee and frites (burger and fries!) -- both were good.
Left our pack at the B/B and wandered around the back streets the next day finally finding our way back to the train statin around 5:30pm just in time to catch "whatever train we wanted" back to Brussels and on to Paris. A truely magical trip!
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Strange things are still happening to me on this adventure:
Forgot to mention that when we left the B/B Thursday morning, at a house half a block away the Queen of Belgium was meeting with the Queen of (?) for morning tea -- she was due to arrive any minute and we could have stayed and greeted her with the crowd that had gathered but neither one of us knew there even was a Queen of Belgium much less what she looked like -- so we passed.
Then later in the day as we were exploring the streets of Brugge we turned a corner into this narrow alley and got caught up in a welcoming reception for the King of Jordan -- Jordanian National Army Marching Band playing and marching in a square, banners, placards with his smiling picture, heavily armed soldiers, men in black suits with earpieces -- the whole deal -- and we wandered right into the middle of the whole thing -- and no one paid us any notice -- strange to say the least! And the band was behaving just like in the comedy movies where you see third world country military marching bands -- a little out of key and not all that coordinated -- the front door of the government building would open and the band would start to play only to have no one exit and they would stop in mid-song -- then the door would be closed and then open again and they'd start-up again only to stop when no one exited --then repeat -- now that was funny!
Two opportunities to meet kings and queens in a single day -- talk about being in fairy tale land!
