Hello! I have procrastinated writing this one because Bruges has been so relaxing. But I’ve now got nearly 4 hours on the train to Amsterdam so plenty of time to write about it!
Day One
On Wednesday we made our way out of Paris and caught the train into Belgium. We arrived at Brugge station and decided to walk to the hotel because €3 each for a 10 minute bus ride seemed steep. It was only about a 25 minute walk until we took some wrong turns.
We chucked our stuff into our room at the hostel and went straight into town. This is the last city where we are staying in the same accommodation as Jordan & Tristin. We are still travelling together, but we have booked different accommodation after Bruges.
As it was about 3:30pm, our first stop was lunch! We weren’t meant to be this late to Bruges, but we had nearly 2 hours worth of train delays in Paris.
We knew very little about Bruges except that there were fries, chocolate and waffles. First thing we needed to try was fries! We found a burger place that seemed good and the food was amazing! We hadn’t realised it, but we set ourselves up for high standards of fries in our first sitting.
We spent the afternoon walking around and seeing what was on offer. We bought some chocolate, had a look at some clothing shops, and just generally wandered around. It was a nice first introduction to Bruges.
Day Two
What we had realised by this point was that today was the national Belgian day. There was a stage set up in the Markt and festivities were happening all day.
We had a slow morning and went out for a walk. We found a chocolate shop that sold hot chocolate made from a chunk of chocolate melted in hot steamed milk. It was delicious!
We found a fries place for lunch and were not as stoked with them as the first place we went the day before. They were good fries, but not quite as good.
Bruges has so many amazing old buildings. The streets are all cobblestone and there are canals all over the place! There are loads of churches which we spent some time looking through a few of them. It seems like everywhere you look there is something stunning to see. We were really enjoying it.
Miriam and I were keen to go and do the beer experience, so we spent the afternoon there. The experience starts with a museum that has a lot of information about the origins and procedure of making beer. It was really interesting and it finishes with a beer tasting of 3 beers (150ml) of your choosing.
I can’t remember what beers I chose, but they were all very good! It was a really relaxing afternoon and we both really enjoyed it.
We had a light dinner back at the hostel before heading into town to see what was going on.
In the Markt, there was a band playing which was cool – they played a mixture of Dutch and English songs. Some we recognised. We only caught the end of them, but when they were finished we went for some waffles! I got persuaded by the ice cream rather than a waffle and it was delicious. So much more ice cream than I though it was going to be!
We went back to the Markt to see the big headline act for the evening only to realise it was just a mass singalong! We managed to get a copy of the programme which had all the lyrics in it, but it wasn’t a lot of help for the Dutch and French songs! The crowd were loving it though. It was such a random event. We did manage to join them on Yellow Submarine and You’re The One That I Want. It was pretty funny.
Since we didn’t know much of what was going on, we went back to our hostel and went to bed! It was good to have a bit of an early night after all of our late nights in Paris.
Day Three
On Friday, Jordan and Tristin decided to head to Ghent for the day, but Miriam and I thought it would be a good day to plan a bit more of our trip that we haven’t done yet. We had a very slow morning and headed out at midday to get some lunch.
We found a spot called The Potato Bar which had pretty good reviews on Google for fries. They didn’t disappoint! These were at least on par with day one. We have eaten so many fries in Bruges and it has been amazing!
In the afternoon we found a canal tour that we could do. It was really cool to see the town from a different angle and to hear about various parts. There is an old hospital on the canal that has an entry for ambulance boats from the canal. There is also a prison which has an entry for prisoners from the canal. It’s really cool to see how the canal was a major part of life in Bruges for so many years. It is now only used for tours with a maximum of 25 boats allowed on the canal.
In the evening we went out for waffle with Jordan & Tristin. We found a place with good ratings on Google and the waffles were amazing! I got a waffle drizzled with milk chocolate and a hot chocolate made from their melted milk chocolate. The hot chocolate had way too much melted chocolate in it and was hard to finish but I loved the waffle!
Bruges has been great. It’s been relaxing, and we haven’t felt rushed at all. Our step count has even been a bit lower! It’s definitely been nice to stop and enjoy a place for a few days.
Looking forward to seeing what Amsterdam has in store for us!
Bye for now! 👋🏻
