Ah Bruges, DU BIST WUNDERBAR!!!

Could I love Bruges more?  Such a shame that we only planned a one night stay here as I could have stayed a lot longer!

This place is gorgeous!  The people are friendly and we got really lucky with the hotel we chose…although parts of it are being renovated, our room had already been done and was spacious and modern with a lovely bathroom.  We were a lazy 10 minute stroll from Market Square, which was the main gathering point in town with lots of restaurants and gorgeous buildings :)

No matter which direction you looked in there would be a church spire in view and the canal that surrounds Bruges gave it a very romantic feel…if we had been able to stay longer we would have definitely done a canal cruise.

It was hard to choose a restaurant as there were so many but we finally settled on one that had a 3 course meal for €16 with about 5 choice each for entrée and main and 2 for dessert.  The first thing we ordered was a cherry beer as we had heard that Belgium was famous for this and wow! We were certainly not disappointed!  If it had not been so high in alcohol I would have had another!

Our waiter was lovely and patient and we nicknamed him Terry as he had an amazing resemblance to TMay!

The food was amazing and I went with the Flemish Stew as the waiter told me whenever he came home from a trip that would be the first thing he would eat.  Nathan went with Waterzooi Chicken which is another common Flemish dish. 

If only I liked mussels, they seem to be the national dish and are served with frites but I just couldn’t bring myself to get them.

On to the Chocolate Museum!!

Although we were stuffed full from lunch of course we still had a bit of room for chocolate!

The Chocolate Museum was great, a sample plate greets you at the door and sets the scene J

We followed the tour guide (not a person but an information sheet) and made our way from the Mayans to the modern day and learned about the history of chocolate before watching a display of chocolate making followed by a tasting of the freshly made chocolate!  I have never liked Pralines but after having one here I may have to say I only like Belgian Pralines!

Back at the hotel we had a few issues with finding accommodation for the following day at Florenville, the nearest town to Orval Abbey, the Trappist Monk Monastery we wanted to visit but finally succeeded in finding a place.  We then booked 2 nights accommodation in Paris :)

Heading back out for a late dinner, we picked another restaurant.  The only criteria we had for this choice was they needed to serve waffles!

This time we chose raspberry beer that I loved and Nathan loved less (haha more for me!) and ordered local seafood dishes (prawns for Nathan, plaice for me) followed by some famous Belgian waffles with chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream and cream for Nathan and Crepes Suzette for me :)

A relaxing walk home in the moonlight topped off a wonderful day.

This morning we had a breakfast booking for 8.30am and weren’t disappointed, freshly baked rolls, croissants and chocolate Danish on our table plus the usual fare in the buffet meant we left Bruges with full stomachs although we saved a little room for another serving of Belgian Waffles, this time with hot cherries, at the station as we waited for our train.

We are on the train to Florenville as I type and looking forward to visiting the Monastery, this is one of the first things that was recommended to us when we started asking friends what they would see in Europe and why.  And strangely, for people that usually don’t drink beer, this trip is turning into a beerfest that we are both enjoying very much!

Update: Saga of the Skis

When we got to Bruges we decided to try and find a post office immediately to try and unload these damned skis!!!!  The girl was lovely and told us that they were too big to post but there was a courier in Brussells that would be able to take them for us.  Yep.