In Bruges

If you haven't yet, go watch the movie with Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes: it's a dark comedy that takes place in Bruges, Belgium, and is basically the reason we spent 3 days in this medieval town a little out of our way.

The images in the background would be of Bruges (and it looked very similarly grey and dark and cool when we were there, though a Twitter friend was there a week later and it was in the 90s, hot and sunny).

To get there, we took a first class high speed train from Paris to Brussels (the cost was surprisingly similar to 2nd class--1st class included lunch). The views of the French countryside were beautiful, and only confirmed that we need to visit the rest of the country of France someday.

Then, we struggled in the Brussels South or Midi train station (South and Midi are the same station, and no, that's not at all confusing, dear Belgium) to figure out how to buy tickets in the machine. Luckily, a friendly tourist helper in a yellow "?" shirt (universal sign of help!) politely informed us that we were in luck: July was a special travel deal month in Belgium: half price for train tickets! But, we would have to stand in line and purchase them from a person, since our American credit card, even the one with the chip instead of the strip, doesn't work in those machines.

Rick Steves did warn me about that, but clearly I forgot.

We stayed in the Hotel Navarra, a hotel that was originally a 17th century mansion, was renovated in the very late 18th century in anticipation of Napoleon's visit (he never showed). It was a Red Cross center during WW1, a student dorm in the 1970s, and the hotel was renovated again in the 1980s and early 2000s, to be a fabulous, and inexpensive, 4 star hotel. 

 

View from our "garden view" room at Hotel Navarra



Bruges was lovely: it was grey, cool, and rainy for most of our stay, alas, but we still enjoyed walking the streets along the canals, tasting beer, and our 40 minute bike ride along a dirt bike path by the canal Napoleon had built to the tiny town of Damme. 

 

Some canals are not along streets---a very Venice-like view here.

 

Walking on cobblestones for a week is a bit of a work out on ones calves.

 

The Tower: Mike climbed it, while I waited in the square, reading the International New York Times.

 

No one wears helmets in Belgium or Amsterdam.

 



 

 

We skipped the hotel breakfast, and ate twice at our favorite venue in Bruges, Books and Brunch, where we had delicious, home cooked (the owners, a husband and wife, took turns in the kitchen, with the husband making breakfast) hot meals, surrounded by books (ok, they were in Dutch, but there were English books upstairs).

We did see the tourist sights in Bruges: we toured the De Halve Maan Brewery (and tasted the beer); we skipped the Friet (French Fries) Museum, but did visit the Chocolate Museum (where you get free tastes).  We also saw the Michaelangelo statue, Madonna and Child, at Church of Our Lady. For those who saw Monuments Men, this piece plays a big part.

We drank delicious Belgium beer, of course, at a local brewery and at the oldest pub in Bruges, Herberg Vlissinghe.

While the beer in Damme was served in bottles and mugs at a cute sandwich shop called Tijl and Nele, it was still yummy!

We returned to Bruges after a few hours, and after a lovely dinner with Michael's friend Rebecca and her boyfriend (Belgium: it's such a small country that she came from the south in Brussels, he came from the north in Antwerp, to meet us in Bruges), we took some evening pictures of the town square.

Was Bruges worth the visit? Oh, yes. Despite the rain and chill.