In Bruges. (Brussels was there too)

We spent the last three days of our trip in the lovely Bruges. 

First thing we did was check into our new hostel...which as it turned out, wasn't a hostel at all. In fact, we got our own house to ourselves! 

Along with a big kitchen, our own bedrooms, and a living room, we even got a lovely little courtyard. 

 There was a square with a pretty little fountain just around the corner. 

On our first full day in Bruges, we headed to the city hall first.

 The best part of the building was the breathtaking wooden ceiling and the murals which told the story of the city's history.

 So far, we were having a lot of fun in Bruges, especially Mike. 

 After City Hall, we walked along a big open canal to see some windmills, which were most impressive because they are still functioning grain mills today.

 Then we got distracted by some swans in the canal.

 We also got distracted by this crazy house. It was basically two-dimensional.

 We finally made it to the Choco-Story, a chocolate museum that tells you the history of chocolate, and shows you how it's made. We even got to have a tasting! 

 I thought this was really cool. Cocoa beans at one time were used as a form of currency. This was like a piggy-bank to store your valuable beans. 

 We also enjoyed the many typos that they made in English.

We'll never know the end of that sentence!

They also loved their "w"s. 

Gotta love coockies!

A giant actual-chocolate egg!

 After the museum, we headed to the Belfort, the Belfry tower, probably one of Bruges most well-known landmarks. We decided we wanted to climb the 365 steps to the top for the incredible view. 

 Well, as you can imagine, I made it about half-way up the narrow, winding, uneven steps before I panicked and had to go back down to the bottom. The rest of the gang went up though, and said it was quite beautiful. Oh well, my stupid fear of heights does it again. 


A perfect way to cheer me up though was our next stop--the French Fry Museum. There, it was similar to choco-story, they told you the history of fries and show you how they're made. 

 We had some fun with the interactive exhibit. 

 The best part though was the fries they gave you at the end! 
For dinner, we found this whole in the wall pub called the Poatersgat. You can see by the picture why we were totally shocked by this place. 

 We mustered up the courage to go in though....

And it totally paid off! The pub was super cool, and it served 115 difference kinds of beer! If only every pub was like this one! 

The next morning we took advantage of the lovely hotel breakfast and I had my first ever soft-boiled egg. It was delicious! My new favorite way to eat eggs!

After breakfast, we went to The Church of Our Lady, with its striking spire. 

 Inside was lovely as well. 

Some Bruges flags.

After stopping by the church we went right next door to St. Jans Hospital. The grounds of the safe-haven were just lovely. 

 Inside, there was a hospital museum, that told some of the history of the beautiful old hospital.

This sedan chair was what the hospital used as an ambulance!
Two men who carry the patient inside and run them to the hospital.

After that we went over to the famous Groeninge Museum, which held a lovely collection of works by Northern artists. 

 Along with the art, even the grounds were beautiful.

 After spending so much time in museums, we decided we needed a break, we headed over to some of the more elite and famous chocolate shops to get our fix of Belgian chocolates!

 I ended up with a small selection of delicious truffles.

 Then we needed more food, so we stopped back at the Belfry courtyard and got traditional fries and waffles. 

 Now that we were finally full, we wandered around the beautiful city. 

 Bruges has a lot of swans, if you haven't already heard. 

 We stumbled across a picturesque monastery, surrounded by a peaceful field of daffodils. 

 Finally, we ended up at Minnewaterpark, a park nearby. We enjoyed just sitting on a bench and taking it all in. 

 And so ended our time in the lovely Bruges!


On our way back to London, we briefly stopped in Brussels to switch trains. In the little bit of time we had we managed to see a good deal. 


You know you're in Brussels when....you see Brussels sprouts! 

Finally, we headed to the train station and back to London.