We started the day quite early to catch out 7.55am train to Bruges. Not knowing what the customs situation would be like in Paris (turns out, non-existent), we arrived an hour early. It was only a quick metro ride from our hotel to Gare du Nord. Our train wasn't even on the board yet, so we settled down for our last French croissant and double espresso.
A short time later, we got up to go and check our train time. On the board, our train was flashing, which is never a good sign. It kept saying 'supprime'. We googled it - 'deleted'. Crumbs. With every other Bruges-bound person we were herded to platform 7, where the train company was boarding a train to Germany. We were all told to wait next to the platform. We stood to the side, not sure what was going to happen with our train. All of a sudden, the leading lady with a loud voice yelled something in French, and all the other Brussels-passengers burst forth onto the platform and raced to get onto the Germany-bound train. Okay? Let's just follow. Still not sure what was happening, we hurried down closer to the back of the train, showed the guy our Brussels-Bruges tickets, and were told to just get on and find a seat. Righto. This was organisational chaos, and gave me more than a little anxiety. Dylan and I sat down in a double seat and waited. People filtered onto the train and sat down. Several people who actually had tickets to Germany would stop buy and query why someone else was already in their seat. Too late. Eventually everyone fit on, with more than a few curt, French discussions about who gets which seat. Thankfully, we were never challenged. It doesn't look like everyone managed to sit, however, as there were some people who simply stood in the baggage area or sat on the ground. Turns out, our train was broken, so they just squished us onto this one and redirected it via Brussels.
It was only about an hour and a half to Brussels, where we were only going to have a nine minute transit to our local inter-city train to Bruges. As we were coming into the station, we stood up to get as close as we could to our bags and the exit, to hit the ground running. While we were waiting however, there were multiple PA announcements in multiple languages, which English was the last. We could tell from the audible sigh of the Germans it wasn't good news. Turns out this train also had a fault, and everyone was going to have to disembark off this train and get onto a new one which would continue onto Dortmund.
Brussels was not an overly confusing train station, but the train information signs were not particularly helpful; Bruges was not the final destination of our train, so we had to pretty much guess which platform. We got it right, however, and saw that the platform sign listed Bruges as a stop. And our rush was unnecessary in the end, as the train was delayed ten minutes. We stood near a raucous, group of primary school children, all wearing high vis jackets, who were very excited to be catching a train. Another interesting thing about Belgium - everyone speaks mostly Dutch, but also French and German. All the train announcements were given three times in French, German and English on the way into Brussels. Everyone I've spoken to here speaks very good English. On the Brussels platform we heard mostly Dutch, and some English.
Our train pulled up and was fairly empty, we got a nice compartment to ourselves. It was another hour to Bruges. Thankfully we didn't have to share with the school children. The ticket inspector came by shortly after we took off. I pulled up my ticket barcode to show him and he just flapped his hand in a 'good' gesture, didn't bother with Dylan's ticket, and then took off for the next carriage. I guess we were on the right train, then.
It was quite a beautiful ride to Bruges, with lots of green countryside and little brick houses.
We arrived in Bruges a short time later. It was only a ten minute walk to our hotel, so we set off with our bags in tow. Immediately, it was apparent how gorgeous Bruges is. We were told in France that Bruges is sometimes called 'Little Venice'. Rivers wind all throughout the town, with little bridges connecting all the cobbled roads.
We found our hotel, Hotel Academie, soon enough, and dropped off our bags. We were right near all the main streets. The lady at front counter gave me a map and explained where all the best sites were, as well as the Christmas markets! We took off to explore. There are so many chocolate shops. I shouldn't be surprised, really. I was drawn in by a sign that proclaimed to have the best hot chocolate. I'll test that theory. Two hot chocolates, and two Belgian chocolates. A good start. The hot chocolate was excellent, I will let them keep that title. For now.
We found the first Christmas markets around the corner. Already magical. Then we went further up the road, and found the MAIN Christmas markets. Christmas-magic levels already off the scale. Just wait until night time.
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| The first markets |
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| Even BIGGER markets. |
I forbade myself from checking out any of the stalls until night time. We stopped for some lunch in the square with a lovely view.
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| My photos are a bit crooked... |
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| Dylan and his Belgian chicken pie. |
We wandered around the square and took in all the sights around town. Not much more to say here, so here's a photo dump:
Beautiful! I've decided Bruges is my favourite place (so far). The next activity was to take a tour of the Bruges brewery - De Halve Maan (The Half Moon). They happen every hour for 10 euro each (including a beer). We bought tickets to the 2pm showing and wandered around some gift shops until the allocated time. The tour went for 45 minutes. We were shown around by an older woman with a dry wit. Once upon a time there were many breweries in Bruges, but De Halve Maan is the only one that survives and is still active. They brew four main types of beer. They are most famous for their world-first beer line. A 3.3km pipeline built a few years ago gently transports the un-matured beer from the brewery to their maturing area outside the city. Beer does not like being on trucks, we were told. It gets sloshed around and arrives very unhappy. When the beer is slowly, gently pushed through the pipeline (it takes about an hour to arrive), it arrives Hoppy happy! Yes, there were lots of puns.
They have preserved a lot of the areas where beer was brewed for the last couple of hundred years up until around 1965, when things were modernised with stainless steel. The 'brewerji' had been in the family for six generations.
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| A portion of the beer pipeline! |
One of the highlights of the tour was the roof - it sports an amazing view of the city!
At the end of the tour we were rewarded with a glass of the Brughe Zot - their award winning blond ale. Dylan also ordered the Straffe Hendrik Tripel - their 9% beer.
After our tour and our beers, we headed back to the hotel to check in and have a rest. This is certainly the nicest hotel we've had so far. (Dylan: That may be because we got the executive suite somehow!)
Our plans for the night were to go out to a bar recommended to me - 't Brugs Beertje - and go to the Christmas markets. The town is full of Christmas lights, it makes for an amazing atmosphere. We stopped off at the first markets for a braadwurst each and had a look around the stores. At the bigger market, where there was ice-skating (tomorrow!), we got waffles.
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| The smaller Christmas markets |
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| Eating waffle with plastic fork takes a lot of concentration. |
It was still early and we'd impulsively eaten dinner and dessert quite quickly, so clearly it was beer time! Near to our hotel was 't Brugs Beertje. Their beer selection went past large towards ridiculous. It broke Dylan. The menu booklet was split into Belgian provinces, then guest beers, taps, sours, Christmas beers (!!!) and one page of wine (because here, who cares).
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| 'There are TOO MANY OPTIONS.' |
I've discovered my new favourite thing - fruit beer. Back in the olde days, when they had too much fruit leftover from summer, they would preserve it in beer for winter. Belgian brewers now continue this tradition, with some truly delicious results. I tried the peach and the raspberry and I have truly been changed.
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| Dylan's plum sour, my peach beer. |
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| Kwak! |
So we've done the beer thing. Dylan had a Christmas Ale and loved it. We got Belgian Hoppy happy and set off home. Tomorrow, probably more beer, waffles, and chocolate!
A+D
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