And so, the end is near and we did it Brugge way.

Morning comes and with it a delightful breakfast in the lovely restuarant with ample cups of tea, toast, cereals, croissants (for now and slipped in the bag for later). I learnt this morning, that Glenn does not like chocolate with breakfast food...he thought the little brown dots in the croissants were currants, and also, that eating twice as much breakfast does not cover lunch, it just makes you feel sick.We leave our bags at reception and head out for more exploring.

I spotted this pic of the bridge outside our hotel and am now forced to jump back to the previous night to regail you with a tale of Glennish exploits. Later in the evening, Glenn headed out to the market square in search of supper and much needed tea. Both of these he found and enjoyed and then headed back to the room. Ahead of him on the street was a man on a bicycle balancing a box on the handlebars and wobbling all over the place. As Glenn caught up to him near the bridge, he kindly asked if he could help. The man, obviously not speaking any English made sufficient grunting type noises, Glenn waved his arms, and, between them, they came to understand what he was offering. So, what could go wrong you ask? As the man got off the bike, Glenn took hold of it, but at the same time, the man let go of the box (perhaps he thought Glenn was going to get that) and it fell to the floor. Out of it fell two bottles of champagne and some plastic cups, but no, amazingly they did not break! Glenn backed away from the bewildered man quickly and retreated to our room. The moral of this story....don't help foreign men on bikes or, don't let Glenn help you.

There is a lot of art in Europe and I couldn't resist holding hands with the lovers above. The first building is the births/deaths/marriages etc. and above is a repeat of the city hall because today we get to go inside. What an amazing treat it was too! There are only a couple of pics because, well, apparently you aren't supposed to take photo's. Oops.

In the one with me sitting, you can see the 'minstrel' balcony up high, and the paintings which cover the walls, took about 2 years to plan and get permission for and then seven years to do. The painter died during the process and his brother took over the job. I couldn't resist having Glenn stand in the Lord Mayor's lectern...just for a moment he was in a position of power to which he naturally feels inclined...but you know what they say; behind every great man.....
Apart from the fantastiic carvings and paintings and the awesome feeling you get standing in a building that has been used for the same purpose for 800 years, we also saw books and ledgers dating back hundreds of years that relate to the workings of the councils.
 From here we headed back toward the hotel to collect our bags and on the way had planned to visit the chocolate museum. How will it stack up to the fries museum I hear you ask.

And the giant cocoa bean says it all! Here in Brugge they know how to preserve really old buildings, how to make yummy crepes, how to clean hotels and be really polite, how to speak enough English, how to avoid stupid tourists on the wrong side of the road and how to make a Subway sandwich the same as every other country BUT, they do not know how to make coffee or museums! They seem to think a museum is a place full of funny cutouts and lots and lots of brightly coloured wall mounts with lots and lots of boring information written on them. The saving grace, was the 'illumination museum' next door oh and by the way, the chocolate to taste at the door left me sorely wanting. It is the biggest collection of domestic lamps in the world, but, it was interesting because it was full of little clay lamps that have been dug out of the ground from hundreds of years ago. You could follow the progression through the centuries and there were even ones that looked like Aladdin's lamp....even fiction is usually from fact. It was now about 11am so we grabbed our bags and headed out for the rest of our day to be at the busstop by 5.30. At this point I must publicly thank my wonderful husband for rescuing me by pulling my bag as well as his own for the next four hours over miles (well quite a lot anyway) of cobbled streets, especially as the boots specially purchased for this trip were proving to be the most uncomfortable he has ever worn and feeling every point and bump of every stone he stepped on.

We decided better of ice skating ourselves, what with the sore feet and inability to pull a small case lol so onward to what was once a palace. Unfortunately no photo's allowed inside but not before Glenn gets one of me with a genuine, off with her head, guillotine.....Ewwww

Light rain is now falling and we follow our trusty map to 'the forum', a modern building which is the home of theatre and music performance in Brugge. Our card entitles us to go to the 7th floor where we can see forever or at least the edge of the town.

After taking in the fantastic view, we set off for the railway station to stash our bags in a locker, have some lunch and see how long we've got till the bus comes.

Small interjection; I have just watched an internet streaming of the FA cup round b/w Leicester and Man City an we have drawn 2-2 YAY. A win would of curse be better but I think there will be one happy camper coming home from the home of the Foxes in about an hour! It was a very good, competitive, clean game to be replayed on Wednesday at a place I've never heard of.

Anyway, back in Brugge, we still had two hours or so, so we explored the less tourist frequented part of the town..a park called Minniewater

Glenn spent ages waiting patiently for a man on a bike to disappear so he could get this last shot, just as he was taking it a lady with two children were just about to appear in shot. The bike seems to be a very popular mode of transport here. The last place we visited was the old gateway to the town, unfortunately closed inside to visitors in winter but worth the walk and slip and slide along the icy path anyway.

And so our first trip to the continent as locals draws to a close. We had one last Belgian meal; a serve of fries and for me, a waffle covered in warm, oozing white chocolate; oh yes, it was good. As we sat in the train station restaurant eating, we watched two different groups sit down with their local burger; meat patty with pickles, and two of them pulled off the lid and scraped out the pickle...it seems some things are the same no matter what language you speak.

It was a quiet trip back to Hull to be welcomed with dense fog for most of the drive. Obviously we arrived back safe and sound and ready to.......sleep!

Brugge day 1 part 2...

So it's after the lunch 4 days later and now it's Nic again. There may not be as much humour today as I have spent three hours on the phone to communications providers (I hear iinet heave a great sigh of relief that we have left aus) trying to arrange our new connections. We really hope we like our new home and want to stay there for the forseeable future...but, you know us lol.

Back to Brugge; A lovely short walk saw us in the heart of this medieval, completely cobblestoned town, where we stood and gawped at the ancient buildings, the horse and carriages passing (there were a lot of 'Look out Nic they're on the wrong side of the road here!' Apparently I almost got knocked down by a cyclist but so oblivious was I that only Glenn and he saw) the lovely Christmas market and......the Belfry.

What an awesome and imposing building it is on this small market square and I'll come back to it shortly. We had smartly prepurchased our Brugge saver cards and immediately hopped on a 1 hour bus tour of the town. In the end we saved about 25pds each with these cards and did things we wouldn't have done if we had had to keep putting our hand in our pockets at each attraction (you can hear the faint cry of 'I'll not be paying for that' most days of the week if you listen hard enough. Certain people in this house, and there might even be two of them at times, have even been known to haggle over a 50p item at the car boot...how embarrassing). The pics that follow were taken as we rode the lovely little bus with personal headphone commentary.

There were once some 20 odd of these majestic windmills surrounding Brugge but now there are only four which are protected. This last pic above is the original council chambers, hundreds of years old and still used for the same purpose today.

 After the bus tour, and feeling suitably relaxed, we headed to the Belfry for the exhausting, death defying, pushing, shoving, squeezing, crawling, claust claustrophobic, excuse me excuse me, thank you thank you.....climb of 366 steps to the top. It was worth it, but I wouuld never do it again! This is still a winding, stone staircase in it's original 800 year old condition. Okay, maybe some of the rope you have to use to pull yourself up in parts is a bit newer but essentially, you may as well be in 13C Brugge. Here's what we saw when we made it to the top.

And if all that wasn't awesome enough, the bells began peeling their afternoon song while we were up the top and it was a beautiful sound. Thankfully the trip down was considerably easier and at the bottom we took a few minutes to take pics of the outdoor Belfry square.

About now you would probably be thinking that after a full and tiring day so far, that normal people would go back to their hotel and have a rest, or go to a coffee shop and have a cuppa; well, we are not dealing with normal people are we. In and adjacent part of the Belfry was an exhibition by Salvadore Dali which we both found to be extremely interesting and enjoyed much of the art...here's a little taste.

So, where to from here I hear you ask? What exciting, amazing place did they visit next......it was the.....Fries Museum. Yes, the belgians credit themselves as the inventor of the 'French' fry and they have a museum to laud its making. We went in a bit sceptical and we came out laughing our heads off. it started well; for me at least, as I enjoyed reading about the history of the humble potato; did you know it's the plant with the most species? Anyway, somewhere between this;

And this;

Things got rather ridiculous and we were stumbling around the 'museum' holding our stomachs with laughter. We decided, rather than be disrespectful to all the other patrons who seemed to be taking this education very seriously, that we would make a hasty retreat to the basement where we were entitled to get some fresh cooked fries at a reduced rate. Now you might be interested to know that the Belgians go more for putting mayonnaise on their fries rather than tomato sauce, but we opted for a batch of naked fries; that is, just the fries. They were nice enough but nowhere near what is needed to claim they are good enough to have a whole museum in their honour. From here it was getting dark and so time for some lovely night pics, a few more times at dodging horse and carriage which, by the way, we thought about doing but it cost 35euros and well, 'I'll not be paying for that!'

And so, after i gorged myself on a fresh crepe drowned in Nutella (strange how belgium is the home of chocolate but they use Nutella hmm) from the market place, we head to a local pizza house for Glenn's tea. He orders his veggie Pizza with not too much trouble; a lot of people speak English here but much of it is broken and some don't have any. He ordered a coffee and was presented with a small cup with about a shot glass worth of black stuff in the bottom. Because our hotel room did not include tea facilities 'How did he survive' I hear you cry, poor Glenn was a bit caffeine deprived but, not wanting to be awkward, as it was the second coffee he had been served like this so it is obviously their custom, he went up to the counter and simply asked for milk. The response was one of complete ignorance, not rude ignorance but got no clue what you mean ignorance, so being a quick thinker, he said 'Latte' and was shown where to get his milk for his mud. Pizza and coffee in hand we exited the shop, not until I had fallen down a step; unharmed but thankful that we had taken the time to get our European medical cards before leaving home. A quick stroll back to the hotel and time to completely and utterly collapse! I am not sure if I have woken up yet...someone pinch me.

That may be the least flattering photograph of me ever. Here is Glenn in our balcony hehe. The doors have been added purely as a double glazing measure. But it was a very nice room and even though it was twin beds...sounds like something from 'On the Buses', at least it was better than the bunks on the ship. A small selection of English speaking or subtitled tv was found and then a very good nights sleep was had by all. Ready to take on day 2 in Brugge. Day 2, is that all? good grief it should surely have taken a week to do all of that!

Bruge day 1

So, after relaxxing inthe cafe we jump off the ship and head to the buses, its at this point we remember that the europeans can on occasion have a slightly different pattern of speech, we stand in the queue to climb on the bus, as we get closer it gets fuller, but its ok there are 2 more buses just there, as we reach the front of the queue, they say "full up, you go there" and point to the 2nd bus, we turn drag our cases to the second bus and are about to load when another officious bus driver walks up "No, No, NO! " Apparently not this bus then... he points us to another bus that has pulled up where the first one was... of course we are now no longer front of the queue, but if they think we are3 going to wait they can think again, so we push in at the fron and climb on... ahhh :)


The trip to the station is about 25 - 30 mins and we sat in the front seats taking in the sights as we enter Brugge, we get off at the station and head to the tourist office to collecxt our Brugge cards which cost us 33 euros each (about 30 pounds... or 18 dollars) these would get us into all the things we wanted to see (and a few we dont). After a quick cuppa and a cake at the station we headed to our first experience, the Ice and Snow sculture show in a tent just outside the station, what a super thing it was, HUGE tents filled with ice carvings so fantastic...and..my god, even colder in there than outside lol. there was even an ice slide which we both foolishly took a ride on.

The walk from the station, where the bus drops us, to the markt (centre of town) is a 20 minute walk, but for 1 pound we can catch a bus.. so, rather than lug the cases, we though we will take the easy option and hopped on a bus.. so.. 20 mins walking should equal  what about 5-6 on the bus? coz we realised we didnt know the stop number etc and couldnt read the names or understand the language (bloomin foriegners lol), anyway after about 5 mins we saw a markt and people started getting off.. Nic said nah...hasnt been long enough, so we stayed on.. but im sure i heard someone mention markt so in my genius i said, lets get off at the next stop else we could be getting miles from our hotel, so off we climb next to a stunning cathedral. We decide, rather than work out where next, lets just have a look inside.

Now

The cathedral was glorious and so we then started toward our hotel, just a 5 min walk from the markt square, we thought if we can drop the cases there we can get out and about, so knowing we had gone slightly past the markt, we set off, all the streets were cobbled, all the buildings beautiful, almost impossible to believe we are in a city that is much the same as it was 800 years ago, we wander mouths agape just staggered by the beauty and history. Of course, what we should have been doing was reading a map and paying attention to where were coz...well, with no fanny to blame, *Nic had got it completely wrong, she had taken us in the wrong driection and we had no idea where we were, what a shambles! sort yself out Nic! (*disclaimer, this was not Nics fault, as i had demanded we get off the bus in the WRONG place she was working on the wrong map, however, i wish to blame her) We stopped, took a good hard look and discovered that we were south of the markt, not North as one of us had assumed, with Nic having sorted us out we made our way to the hotel, we werent supposed to be able to check in until 2 but they were wonderful and let us in at 11, so a 15 minute rest after our long walk etc and we were ready to go out.

our hotel.... more to come..im off for some lunch