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