Day 35-36: Bruges, Belgium

Antwerp, check!

Ghent, check!

Next stop: Bruges!

Early afternoon on Friday, we boarded the train in Ghent to journey to Bruges. Ashley and I, being the wise travelers that we are, had looked up walking directions to our hostel in Bruges Belgium. We used GoogleMaps to figure out which train station would put us in closest walking distance to the hostel. So we took the train to Bruges Sint Pieter. When we reached the train stop, we tried to open the train car door to get off, but for some reason, it would not open. Before we could get help, the train was off again to the next stop. Ashley and I decided to ride to the next stop and get back on the next train going back to the Sint Pieter stop. This is precisely what we did. We ended up at this small train station where we waited for about 20 minutes till the next train took us back to Bruges Sint Pieter.

Now would you guess our luck? As soon as we sat down on the train to get back to Sint Pieter, the ticket-checker man came up to us and asked for our tickets. Ashley showed him hers, and he began to question why we were going the wrong direction. We tried to explain to him that the door to the train hadn't opened and that we were getting off at the next stop. He just shook his head and kept going.

We got off at Sint Pieter and were a bit uncertain as to which way to head. After checking out the situation, we began walking in the direction that we thought was correct. Turns out that it was not! We spent about half an hour walking down this main road before we realized something was up. So we went back to this gas station near the train stop and purchased a map. We asked the man at the counter about getting to the hostel via bus, and he told us there was construction, so public transportation was out of the question. We made the executive decision to go back to the Bruges Train Station and ask the people at the Tourist Information Desk for information about a bus.  While we were walking in the wrong direction, we did happen upon the above pictured windmill, which I thought was worthy of a nice picture!

Back on the train, without a proper ticket (again!), who do you suppose we bumped into? You guessed it, the same ticket-checker looked up towards us as we boarded the train and headed into a cabin to take a seat for the short ride. Ashley and I tried to back out of the cabin before he saw us, but we were too late. He just looked at us and said, "Oh, you again?". We decided to just stand by the doors for the short ride, and could not help but crack up laughing the entire ride to the Bruges station. This guy must have thought we were crazy (or dumb Americans)!

Back at the Bruges Train Station, we were a bit worn out already from our quest for the hostel, so we decided to rest for a bit and grab a bite of lunch. We ate (a rather unhealthy) lunch at the station: krokets (Ashley's favorite Dutch food), fries, coffee and a tourist waffle. Yum :)

We then went to the Tourist Info Desk and asked about taking the bus to the hostel. The man directed us  to the bus station outside where we asked the nicest Dutch woman at the ticket counter about getting us as close as possible to the hostel via the bus. She commented on the changed routes due to construction, but told us the best bus to get on. We purchased a bus ticket and waited inside a few minutes for the bus to come. We were very thankful to take the bus to the hostel, as we were whooped from walking in the cold so much already!

We arrived around 3pm to Snuffel Backpacker Hostel. It was pretty much your typical hostel, with a few quirks. Our room was up the spiral staircase on the first floor. It was a 6-person female dorm. There were two Asian girls staying there who were studying in Germany for the semester, and two other girls who we did not meet. The room was decent. It was a bit moist and smelled a tad like mildew, but nothing too bad. The view from the window was nice. We could see the tops of some of the surrounding buildings. I set up camp on the top bunk and put my things securely in a locker before we headed out to explore Bruges.

Bruges is sometimes called the "Venice of the North". I haven't been to Venice (yet!), but Bruges was definitely beautiful! It was a quaint, romantic little town characterized by numerous canals and grand architecture. Our main mission in Bruges was to go to  the Choco-Story Museum and taste some yummy Belgian chocolate. We went over there after settling into the hostel, but they were closing soon and told us to come back the next day. So we ended up just walking through the shopping district and went to one Cathedral Friday afternoon. It was great, because we got to see a lot of Bruges and realized how small and cute it was! Plus, we could make a list of things we wanted to do in the morning.

After roaming around for a bit, we both became hungry and looked at our "Young Travelers" map of Bruges to find someplace good to eat. We headed to one place that was supposed to make great Flemish cuisine, but it was closed for some reason. However, we found this great little pub across the street and decided to escape the cold and eat here. Inside, we took a table and ordered drinks. Ashley had a Duvel and I had echt chocomel met slagroom (hot chocolate with whipped cream!). I may have mentioned before how lax the Dutch are when eating out in a restaurant. Its definitely not like America, where the server won't leave you alone while you eat. After about an hour of enjoying our drinks and thawing out, we had to go up to the bar to order our dinner. We both order macaroni, ham and kaas (mac 'n' cheese with ham!) and I got a Duvel (Belgian beer :). We enjoyed a very leisurely dinner. There were only a few people in the pub the whole time we were there. Mostly some older couple enjoying appetizers and drinks at the bar. When we were all through, we paid at the counter. Some of the people at the bar asked where we were from and we told them the States. They were all very nice and spoke to us for a few minutes. As we got up to leave, everyone at the bar waved and said goodbye to us. Only in Bruges!

We headed back to the hostel after dinner. We were about 10-minutes walking at this point from the hostel and it was quite dark, but we didn't feel unsafe at all. Bruges just gives you that feeling of comfort of feeling totally safe. We crossed the canals and weaved through the narrow streets back to the hostel where we each bought 30-minutes on the internet to check our Facebooks (the important things in life!) and headed up to bed. I decided to take a shower that night before bed, which I normally wouldn't mention in the blog, but it was kind of weird and definitely memorable! So to get to the shower, you had to walk through the downstairs, which is a bar at night, and through the kitchen, outside across the terrace, back inside and up a flight of stairs to the bathroom where there were about 5 showers with just a curtain for the door! And you had to hold down a chain to get water to come out. Yikes! This made for an interesting shower....

Next morning, we woke up early (okay, 8:30am) and got ready to roam around Bruges some more. We had a nice breakfast at the hostel and checked out. Luckily, we could leave our luggage in their locked baggage room, so we didn't have to carry it with us all morning! We were ecstatic, because today the sun was out!!! The weather was a bit warmer and we could enjoy walking instead of just hurrying into the next building. We first went to the Belfry Tower, where we ascended the 366 stairs to the top...what a workout! But it was so worth it when we reached the top!  We were able to see all of Bruges. Absolutely gorgeous! I got some (okay a lot!) of great pics from the top of the tower. I bought a nice postcard here too to have a nice photo of where we had been.

Next, we went to the Choco-Story museum. I was really impressed with it! They walked you through a very thorough history of chocolate, in which I learned a lot! I was surprised to hear that royalty centuries ago found chocolate so delicious that they would drink it as a sign of wealth. I bought a postcard with one of the paintings on it that shows royalty sipping their coffee beverages. They had chocolate sculptures, including one of Obama. Now that felt American :) The museum also featured a section where they showed us how they make their very own filled chocolates. We watched the whole process and at the end, we got to try the filled chocolates. I had a milk chocolate filled with strawberry and a dark chocolate filled with coffee. Yum :)

After the Choco-Story Museum, we went back to retrieve our bags from the hostel and headed to the train station. It was nice enough that we chose to walk the whole way, since we knew how close it was as well.

Bruges was by far my favorite part of the trip to Belgium. It was quaint, romantic and beautiful. The weather was gorgeous, we drank Belgian beer, we ascended a magnificent tower and ate some delicious Belgian chocolate! Next to Amsterdam, Bruges is one of my favorite cities that I have visited thus far.