So it seemed that Bruges was going to be all about the culinary experience that is Belgium, Belgian waffles - amazing, especially with melted chocolate and whipped cream on top, next was a picnic in the park - cheese, salami, sangria and the delicious Belgian chocolate made for an interesting (and slightly drunken) afternoon, the finale was the mussels, steamed in a celery and white wine sauce - glad we tried them but not something I would go out of my way to find. To wash this all down was the rather unimpressive Belgian Beer, tart, sour and the kind of thing that makes you do that silly scrunched up face.
Bruges itself was an extremely little town composed pretty much of 2 main squares and lots of canals where we spent a lot of time wandering about aimlessly. Whilst walking to the square we did see a huge taxodermied (or however you want to describe it) tiger, yes tiger, on the back of a guy casually riding along on his pushbike, thats another thing, they love their pushbikes here! We saw lots of antique shops selling all manner of things in this very pretty city.
We undertook another free walking tour and saw some really amazing old buildings, where a little blue and white plaque would symbolize that the entire building was in its original state. We wandered past lots of locations for the In Bruges movie including this cute dog who just hangs his head out the window all day staring into the canal. We passed windmills and original parts of the wall gates and heaps of tourists on canal boats. The ancient fish market, the beer wall and the free concerts were the last stops.
A rather unsuccessful pub crawl and it was time to meet our Busabout bus for the first time. We got our passes, loaded our bags and were on our way to Amsterdam. We had our own earphone ports so the Smurfs and Russel Brand entertained us on our way!
L&R
