Here we go – another weekend and another city in Belgium. Our last Belgium trip was to Brussels where we both had thoroughly enjoyed – but this trip was very special. For one, it was not a planned trip but a last minute booking to get a Schengen visa for our Greece adventure (coming up next week!)and second, there was absolutely no agenda. I had done a trip planner from the site (www.tripomatic.com) that I had recently started using – you may have seen my post on Facebook, but barring climbing up the Belfry and getting the best view of the city and the canal ride and of course gorging on chocolates and Belgian beer our trip was pretty open ended. And, thank god for that…as I caught a cold just a day before we started!
Just like most of our trips, this one again, had a very early morning start! Our Eurostar train from Kings Cross to Brussels had a 08:05am departure time, and, just like my earlier travelogue, there was chaos in the morning as we had planned to leave the house at 6 to reach on time. Anyways….we managed to get there not just on time, but with enough time to spare to pick up breakfast! (Mind you, our flight for Athens day after is at 8:45am – I’m sure this paragraph in the next travelogue will be far more interesting as we would need to leave the house at 5:30!)
So…back to Bruges….we took the Eurostar from London to Brussels which took us 2 hours (to the dot!) and then took the Intercity line to Bruges. The journey from Brussels to Bruges was only about 45 mins and it passed by fairly quickly. I must mention the Intercity trains are absolutely fantastic and extremely comfortable – nothing like the London tube and far far better than the rail system in UK.
We reached Bruges just around noon local time (Belgium is one hour ahead of UK) and the first thing I noticed after stepping out of the train was that there was a smell of chocolate in the air! The entire city smells of chocolate thru out the day and it’s heavenly for a chocolate lover like me.
Just to give some perspective, Bruges as a city (or the Bruges town centre – the touristy bit) is circular surrounded by a canal with about a 900-950m radius. It also has canals within the circumference of the city.
The Bruges rail station is just outside the periphery of the town centre limits. Our hotel on the map was shown to be 1.2 km walk but as we weren’t really sure and didn’t really have our bearings right, we decided to take a cab to the hotel. 5 min and 10 euros well spent because in that ride over to the hotel thru tiny cobbled streets we fell in love with the city.
Bruges epitomizes Romanticism for me (and maybe both of us) – not in a lovey dovey mushy popular way – but in the true meaning of the word Romantic in the old fashioned way – the idealistic view of reality. From the tiny cobbled streets (yes, ALL the streets are cobbled and there is no difference between the road and the pavement) to the gorgeous canal system to the beautiful architecture (not a single modern building!) – Everything in the town seemed perfect! Not to mention the chocolates and beer!
We were staying the Hotel de Tuilerieen – which at the time of booking I had not realized is quite famous in Bruges as the front of the hotel has stained glass windows imported from Italy. We were on the top floor, but the other 2 floors are done up in a palatial style – it actually feels like you’re walking thru a castle or palace with dim lights and heavy tapestry etc. – of course, it also costs 3 times as much
So…back to Bruges….we took the Eurostar from London to Brussels which took us 2 hours (to the dot!) and then took the Intercity line to Bruges. The journey from Brussels to Bruges was only about 45 mins and it passed by fairly quickly. I must mention the Intercity trains are absolutely fantastic and extremely comfortable – nothing like the London tube and far far better than the rail system in UK.
We reached Bruges just around noon local time (Belgium is one hour ahead of UK) and the first thing I noticed after stepping out of the train was that there was a smell of chocolate in the air! The entire city smells of chocolate thru out the day and it’s heavenly for a chocolate lover like me.
Just to give some perspective, Bruges as a city (or the Bruges town centre – the touristy bit) is circular surrounded by a canal with about a 900-950m radius. It also has canals within the circumference of the city.
The Bruges rail station is just outside the periphery of the town centre limits. Our hotel on the map was shown to be 1.2 km walk but as we weren’t really sure and didn’t really have our bearings right, we decided to take a cab to the hotel. 5 min and 10 euros well spent because in that ride over to the hotel thru tiny cobbled streets we fell in love with the city.
Bruges epitomizes Romanticism for me (and maybe both of us) – not in a lovey dovey mushy popular way – but in the true meaning of the word Romantic in the old fashioned way – the idealistic view of reality. From the tiny cobbled streets (yes, ALL the streets are cobbled and there is no difference between the road and the pavement) to the gorgeous canal system to the beautiful architecture (not a single modern building!) – Everything in the town seemed perfect! Not to mention the chocolates and beer!
We were staying the Hotel de Tuilerieen – which at the time of booking I had not realized is quite famous in Bruges as the front of the hotel has stained glass windows imported from Italy. We were on the top floor, but the other 2 floors are done up in a palatial style – it actually feels like you’re walking thru a castle or palace with dim lights and heavy tapestry etc. – of course, it also costs 3 times as much
Our room was very nice – quite spacious and as we were on the third floor the ceilings slanted at the end, which meant Manish kept bumping his head every time The first thing I normally do when checking into the hotel is to check every cupboard/cabinet…open all doors…see what’s there inside the room and I have to say I was highly impressed except for the fact that there was no TV (though it said there would be in the booking), but – there was TV remote! Manish, in his usual way, stated that they must have redone the room and forgot to put the TV on the wall, but that reason did not add up for me because I remembered seeing a photo of the hotel with the TV near the foot of the bed! Mystery of the missing TV was finally solved by locating it at the footboard of the bed – but – it was inside the foot board and I couldn’t pull it out! Finally with a call to Reception we found that there are 2 switches at the headboard of the bed which bring the TV up and down! Super Cool!!!
he walked from one end of the bed to another. The weather forecast for the weekend was not good so we only had Friday to do the things we really wanted to do. It was bright and sunny – of course with a chill in the air. We walked out of our hotel, crossed the canal which was right in front of it and headed towards the main square – Markt.
The Markt (Market Square) is right in the heart of the city and has many nice buildings around it including the Belfry tower. Our plan was to climb the 366 steps up the tower to get the best views of Bruges and on a clear day like it was on Friday, one can actually see up to the sea (though I don’t think I saw it!)
Here’s a pic of the Markt, the Belfry tower and Provincial court.
Here’s a pic of the Markt, the Belfry tower and Provincial court.
The Belfry tower of Bruges or Belfort is a medieval bell tower – construction of the tower was a symbol of prosperity for the citizens. The tower used to have a treasury, an archive and an observation deck for spotting fires etc. It’s 83 meters high and there are 366 steps along a very narrow and very steep stairwell thru which one can get to the observation deck for a bird’s eye view of Bruges. I had originally thought that climbing the tower would be difficult but coming back down was even more so! The steep spiral staircase made it seem as if I was water going down a funnel – round and round and round….yikes!
What followed next was the canal boat ride. The ride was fabulous on the inner canal which cuts right thru the town – after the ride we realized that we had seen all the sights from the boat! The other thing to notice about the canal is that there are plenty of swans – which given the city another romantic look. Legend has it though that in 1488 the people of Bruges had executed one of the town administrators belonging to the court of Maximilian of Austria. The town administrator, Pieter Lanchals, family coat of arms featured a white swan. It is said that Maximilian punished Bruges by obliging the population to keep swans on their lakes and canals till eternity.
Once our boat ride was over, it was time to get inside and get warm and while Manish enjoyed the famous Bruges Zot which is locally brewed, I settled in for a nice hot chocolate. After a light meal, we were back in hotel as I started feeling feverish and while Manish caught up on the world news – I slept off my cold!
It was then time to find a place to have dinner – while my siesta Manish had googled a nice place close to our hotel but when we walked in they unfortunately had no place for us. That was another thing I noticed, all eateries in Bruges were small – there were plenty of them – but, they were all small. I remembered reading about a Thai restaurant which was quite nice and suddenly all I wanted was some Tom Yum soup ( I think it was the cold!). We googled it and thankfully it was just at the outer ring of the centre – about 900m from where we currently were! The portions were big and the food was delicious – totally worth the 10-12 min stroll. Around 10..we made our way back to the hotel.
Bruges at night is really quiet and has a different sort of beauty. All the symbolic buildings are nicely lit up giving the city (again) a very romantic feel. Unfortunately on both days we did not carry the camera at night and didn’t end up with any pics apart from the one taken from the cell phone…
It was then time to find a place to have dinner – while my siesta Manish had googled a nice place close to our hotel but when we walked in they unfortunately had no place for us. That was another thing I noticed, all eateries in Bruges were small – there were plenty of them – but, they were all small. I remembered reading about a Thai restaurant which was quite nice and suddenly all I wanted was some Tom Yum soup ( I think it was the cold!). We googled it and thankfully it was just at the outer ring of the centre – about 900m from where we currently were! The portions were big and the food was delicious – totally worth the 10-12 min stroll. Around 10..we made our way back to the hotel.
Bruges at night is really quiet and has a different sort of beauty. All the symbolic buildings are nicely lit up giving the city (again) a very romantic feel. Unfortunately on both days we did not carry the camera at night and didn’t end up with any pics apart from the one taken from the cell phone…
The next morning I was feeling worse so we had a very lazy start to the day. Manish had checked out some nice breakfast places and we ended up at the Prestige Patisserie – and what a nice little place that was! It looked like a mini and slightly less posh version of Laduree in Paris. Run entirely by a family – mom and daughter made the delicacies…son in law made the chocolate that was used for the delicacies… and the rest of the family worked around the restaurant. The breakfast was absolutely mouth wateringly superb. Manish had the Belgian waffles with chocolate and banana – the waffles were super light and would melt in your mouth. I had the ham and cheese sandwich which really does not have much of a variety but the bread these guys used was very nice.
After breakfast (or more like brunch) it was time to make our way to the Chocolate Museum. I had such high expectations from this museum but it was quite disappointing. The museum was on 4floors and did not really have much other than history of how chocolate came about – coco beans and their origins and how they were used as offerings to god, and then as a currency for barter system. There was a nice video on the 3rd floor though. What I found most interesting in this museum was the ‘Tea Service’ collection they had. There was one really pretty one which unfortunately we do not have a picture of – this was the service that was created especially for Marie Antoinette and it was white with cornflowers – it stated that Marie Antoinette was very fond of cornflowers as they were the same blue colour as her eyes! Talk about vanity!
From the chocolate museum we then decided to go to the only remaining brewery in Bruges. It was good 10-12 min stroll and we passed many nice buildings on the way….And, considering there are not too many cars in Bruges…we passed a LOT of horse driven carriages. Very cool and a very expensive ride!
The brewery in Bruges is called the Half Moon but lovingly is also known as Henri Maes after the owner. It is a family run brewery which is currently being run by the 6th generation. There was a picture of, I believe, Henri Maes the 6th (leftmost) and he reminded us of a fairer and slimmer version of my brother!
Our tour guide thru the brewery was excellent with lots of info on beer especially Belgian along with stories. By the end of this tour I was ready to call it a day as the cold was getting worse and so was the weather. We had a quick bite to eat and headed to our hotel where I tried to sleep off the cold.
It was now our final day in Bruges and train from Brussels back to London was at 6pm. The check-out from the hotel was not till 11:30 and the weather outside was horrible with lots of rain and really windy.
We checked out of our hotel at leisure and went out for some breakfast. By the time we finished it was almost noon and we only had about 2 hours to spare. We walked around a bit – could not walk too far due to the rain – and bought some chocolates and my bit of lace :) After this it was back to our hotel bar which was really quaint for a quick drink to pass time before our train from Bruges to Brussels
We checked out of our hotel at leisure and went out for some breakfast. By the time we finished it was almost noon and we only had about 2 hours to spare. We walked around a bit – could not walk too far due to the rain – and bought some chocolates and my bit of lace :) After this it was back to our hotel bar which was really quaint for a quick drink to pass time before our train from Bruges to Brussels
Our trip back seemed never ever ending and the horrible weather both in Belgium and UK did not help. We reached Kings Cross around 7, but there seemed to be some confusion going on and there were huge lines at customs where they were just checking whether one had arrived in the train from Paris or Brussels. The ride on the underground was also painfully long as there had been an accident on the line earlier. All in all – it just felt as if it was never going to end. We finally made it home around 8:30pm and though it was an amazing weekend in Bruges….I was glad to be back inside my warm home!