Bruges, Belgium

Belgium may only be a small country but holds its weight in terms of things to eat,see and drink. We travelled to two cities in Belgium over a single weekend - Bruges and Brussels. The fact that we only knew how to speak English did not hinder our travels, as most tourist directions and menus are multilingual - French, Dutch, English, German; and the locals were helpful in providing assistance.
This made the experience of eating mussel pots, waffles and chocolate some of the reasons we love travelling around Europe.

Bruges

Bruges is a UNESCO listed city that at one time in the 1500's held power as being one of the main commercial centres in Europe. However, due to silt building up in the main channel (commercial transport back then relied on boats), the city lost its access to the sea and soon fell into decline as it was no longer a key player on the international cargo trade route. As a result, the city became preserved in its medieval state and is popular with tourists and fans of the film 'In Bruges'.

Belfry tower - famous scenes in the movie 'In Bruges'

Train to Bruges

We arrived at Bruges using the 'any Belgian station' Eurostar ticket that gave us access to connecting trains from Brussels Central station. The route is very popular as a day trip from the UK, particularly in Winter as a destination for Christmas markets.

Canals
Bruges was stunning and lived up to its reputation as the 'Venice of the north' with scenery straight out of a fairytale. We skipped the canal tour boat as we realized that we had already walked most of the journey on foot as a result of trying to find the ticket booth.

Canal tour boat

Beautiful canals with pretty houses

 

The canals act as very pretty photo backdrops

Pretty Architecture
Even in the non-peak season, Bruges was packed with tourists. The walkways are quite narrow and this may have exaggerated the feeling that the entire town was swamped by tour groups carrying cameras. There was little to complain about in terms of scenery. The orange, yellow, red autumn leaves contrasted against the brick work, medieval buildings and stone bridges provided us with some very picturesque photos.

     

Canal view

Kookeet Food Festival

For most of the afternoon we proceeded to engage ourselves in an almost endless cycle of eating, walking, eating and then more walking to burn off the calories. By sheer coincidence, whilst we were touring the main square on route to our hotel, we became distracted by the existence of a fine-dining food festival - Kookeet where samples from Michelin star restaurants could be purchased for 6 euro each.

Scallop, tuna and cold smoked salmon

Pheasant terrine

Shrimp in a baked potato with dill

Traditional Belgian Food

By the end of the first day, we had travelled across hundreds of metres of cobblestone laneways and another good feed was definitely in order as Bruges cuisine did not disappoint again. Moules and frites (mussels and fries) are part of any cafe menu, prepared in a variety of cooking methods to suit different tastes.

We tried the version cooked in Bruges's Zot (the local beer) and the creamy, alcoholic, celery soup made the shellfish so tender that we downed the entire bowl (about 1kg) within 15 minutes and topped it off with cherry beer (Belle-vue Kriek) and a salad of artisan pate with Flemish ham.

Mussels in beer and fries with mayonnaise

Pate and Flemish ham salad

Cherry beer and a star shaped pretzel

Sweet Things
Nearby was one of the forty or so chocolate shops that we had passed whilst wandering around Bruges. However it wasn't the chocolate that attracted our attention to head inside, it was the nougat. Thick, fluffy wedges of praline flavoured nougat that tasted more like marshmallow than the teeth breaking hard version that was sold in Australia.

Nougat tower

Halloween Chocolates

Christmas chocolates - Bruges

Bruges at Night
After getting our sugar fix, we continued walking around town until early evening, where the reflections of street lights over the waterways posed for Olie's camera creating a dream-like atmosphere.

Perfect fairytale scenery

Bruges at night with a family of sleeping swans

Golden Tulip de'Medici Hotel
The hotel we stayed at - Golden Tulip de' Medici had a fusion theme of Italian and Japanese. The restaurant served both sushi and pasta; and a Japanese garden was surrounded by frescos of the Italian Renaissance. The hotel was quite decent and located near the northern wall, a less touristy area of Bruges but home to the famous windmills and the old medieval gates that once protected the city. From there, we headed back south to the Astrid park, and then onwards to the train-station to Brussels.

Windmills along the east boundary of Bruges

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