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!