Based on a suggestion by Andrew, we travelled to Brugge to
check out a town that we were assured was worth a visit.
The trip to Brugge was interesting, to say the least.
Being the seasoned travellers that we are, we decided that
it would be quicker to buy tickets from Rotterdam to Brussels and then tickets
from there to Brugge. This was mistake number 1. As we pulled into the station
at Antwerp and the train stopped, we could hear the platform announcer directing
travellers connecting to Brugge to the correct platform. An examination of a
map later on showed that we travelled far more miles than we needed to, and
almost certainly at greater cost.
Mistake number 2 – we decided that Brussels Centrale was the
major station. Wrong.
We caught another train to Brussels Midi where we could
catch the train to Brugge. We decided to ask at the information counter at
which time and which platform we could catch the next train to Brugge. Whilst
standing in the line we struck up a conversation with two very nice English
ladies whose husbands had gone fishing in Spain. As a spur of the moment thing,
they had decided to make a visit to Brugge – and what an entirely appropriate idea
that was; their husbands were having fun, why couldn’t they? Anyway, the information
officer told us that next train to Brugge was on platform 15 at 2.26 pm. This
was to be mistake number 3.
The four of us got on that train and as it was pulling out
of the station, an electronic sign informed us that the next stop was at Liege. I knew we had an issue, because Leige was the
station where we changed trains to go to Maastricht. Luckily for us, the ticket
inspector just happened to be making her way up the train. “No” she said, “this
train has COME from Brugge”
We got off at Brussels Centrale to catch the next train back
to Brussels Midi. That train was delayed by 7 minutes, so that when we did get
back to Brussels Midi, we just missed the next train to Brugge and had to wait
for another half an hour. And guess which platform the train for Brugge was
leaving from – platform 16, which is on the same piece of concrete – on one
side of the platform the train heads in one direction and the other side of the
platform the train heads off in the opposite direction. And he definitely said
15, because all four of us heard it.
Needless to say, we arrived at Brugge much later than we
expected, but that is all part of the adventure. We farewelled the ladies,
checked into our hotel and went for an exploration of the town in the little
daylight we had left.
Andrew advised us very well – this was really well worth
visiting.
It is another place with old buildings and cobblestone
streets and a town square overlooked by another quite imposing building, which
I assumed to be the town hall. After an hour or so of looking around, we found
a cafe that sold a dish that the ladies advised us to sample – mussels and
chips. Again, it doesn’t sound like much, but the mussels, still in their
shells, are cooked in a broth of celery and what appeared to be spinach or
something like that – it was not silver beet. It was very enjoyable and we
thanked the ladies with a small toast.
The next day we awoke to rain. This was really disappointing
as we had hoped to spend several hours exploring more of the place. When the rain
slowed somewhat later in the morning, we set off to buy chocolate and also
search for beer glasses for one of my workmates at Kerang. The beer glasses
idea was quickly dropped when I rang to tell them that the freight was €65 to Australia – that is around A$80.
There are chocolate shops everywhere in Brugge, all priced
for the tourist sector unfortunately. I will be interested to check out the
price of Belgian chocolate in Australia, as I suspect it will be much like the
Swiss chocolate – cheaper in Australia. As we were walking around the chocolate
shops, we bumped into our English ladies who greeted us very excitedly – to be
able to hold a conversation in English when you are overseas is something you
don’t appreciate until you go to a foreign country. Having said that, everybody
we spoke to in Brugge spoke English.....
Having bought our chocolate, we made our way to the train
station to catch the train to Paris. We did decide that we would like to return
to Brugge and spend far more time there.
