If you haven’t heard of Bruges, Belgium – read about it. If you haven’t been, go now. Or watch the movie In Bruges. It’s beautiful, old and a great representation of a small Belgian town. We arrived in the afternoon and decided to walk to our hotels in the center of town instead of taking a cab from the train station. This was not as easy as we had anticipated, especially for Rob, whose bag was being wacky, making him have to carry it on his shoulder the whole time. We were really impressed with our hotel, the Martin’s Relais Oud Huis, the building of which dates back to the 13th century, which we had gotten with credit card points. The room was enormous, especially by European standards, and we had a beautiful view of the canal outside our window.
Unfortunately, by the time Rob chose to join us our hotel was fully booked, but he found another that was 5 minutes away. Bruges is a wonderful city to walk around in – it is filled with quaint canals, cobblestone streets and 500-year-old Belgian architecture. Since it’s not very large, you can easily get around the town in about 10-15 minutes. After getting settled, we started out at Herberg Vlissinghe, a pub that dates back to 1515, where we began our foray into Belgian beers. Each old pub had dozens, if not hundreds, of Belgian beers to choose from. Many were served in their own unique beer glass. After a lovely fondue dinner at Le Petit Patron, we made our way to the Charlie Rockets Youth Hostel, which has a bar on the first floor with foosball and pool tables. While there, we stumbled upon a local man’s bachelor (stag) party. The groom was really nice and we ended up hanging out with the group for awhile.
The next day, the jet lag finally caught up to Rob so we used the time to catch up on some work and we didn’t start exploring until the afternoon. For lunch we tried Belgium’s famous frites, which were really good and served with a number of delicious dipping sauces. We then stopped by the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which is the home to a relic of Jesus’ blood. The church holds a festival every May where they parade through the town while carrying the relic. After visiting the basilica, we went to check out another thing Belgium is famous for – chocolate! There are tons of chocolate shops all over Bruges, and we hit up a few stores for some fresh treats. That evening, we were also able to stream the Blackhawks game on Kevin’s laptop, which we watched in the hotel bar with other French hotel guests giving us odd looks.
On our third day in Bruges, we wanted to take advantage of the few “touristy” attractions in the town. The first was the climb up the Belfry, or Bell Tower, in the Market Square. It is 366 steps to the top, which isn’t too difficult, but when you add that you are walking up on a tiny twisted staircase while holding on to a center rope with other people going up and down, it becomes quite a journey. As many of you know, I’m afraid of heights, so I didn’t get too close to the edge but the view from the top of the tower is breathtaking. We were even at the top when the hourly bells loudly chimed.
Afterwards, we headed to the Historium, a historical museum next to the Belfry. On the second floor they have the Duvelorium bar, which has a wonderful balcony where you can get a fantastic view of the entire square. We also took a canal boat tour, which consists of a quick 20-minute ride through all the town’s canals. While the ride was beautiful and peaceful, the commentary left a little to be desired. For instance, the tour guide would just point to a building and then say in French and English “that building was built in the 14th century” and not give any other information. Regardless, his lack of detail made it pretty humorous. We also got to see Bruges’ most famous dog, a golden retriever that naps in a windowsill every day while the canal boats drive by. Since I was in Belgium, I really wanted to get some mussels, one of the country’s specialties. We found some at a restaurant off the main square, and they were as delicious as I’d hoped.
The next day, we got another specialty – the Belgian waffle – for lunch at a small shop right off the square. It was then that Rob told us that the owner of his hotel had informed him about a rail strike that was taking place the next day on all Belgian trains. Apparently the strike had been scheduled for months yet no one bothered to mention this to us. Since we were supposed to be heading to Amsterdam the next morning, we started getting nervous and decided to go to the travel information center to check out the situation. We were quickly informed that no trains would be traveling tomorrow and we could either wait another day or make other plans. We were basically given the choice of staying another night in Bruges, taking several buses to Brussels and then a bus from Brussels to Amsterdam or renting a car. None of those sounded appealing to us, and we were also concerned that we would lose out on the money we spent on the train ticket. We headed back to our hotel and talked to the woman at the front desk to see if she had any other information. She asked if we wanted a quote for a taxi to drive us to Amsterdam. We thought it would be absurd, but said sure regardless. It turned out to be reasonable, and we figured that would be our best option once we found out that we could get a full refund for our train ticket. After spending several hours figuring out our options and getting the refund, I needed a big glass of wine. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Passage and were seated next to a couple from Australia that we began talking to. Their names were Steve and Debbie and they had recently left Adelaide for a seven week trip around Europe. They were heading to many of the same places as us so we started sharing stories and suggestions. The wine started flowing and we ended up having great conversations about everything from travel to history to music with them for the next few hours. They even invited us to come visit them in Australia next winter to escape the Chicago cold.
The driver who was taking us to Amsterdam was only available after 3:00 pm, so we had some extra time in Bruges the next day. We visited the Church of Our Lady, which is home to the Madonna and Child statue by Michelangelo. It is actually the only Michelangelo to ever leave Italy in his lifetime. At 3:00, the driver came to pick us up and we left the wonderful town of Bruges for our journey to the Netherlands.
Recommendations:
- Martin’s Relais Oud Huis. Genthof 4a, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. https://www.martinshotels.com/en/.
- Cafe Herberg Vlissinghe. Blekersstraat 2, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. http://www.cafevlissinghe.be/.
- Le Petit Patron. Niklaas Desparsstraat 4, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. http://www.lepetitpatron.be/.
- Charlie Rockets Youth Hostel. Hoogstraat 19, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. https://hotel-charlie-rockets.hotelescuatroestrellas.website/.
- Belfry of Bruges. Markt 7, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. https://www.museabrugge.be/bezoek-onze-musea/onze-musea-en-monumenten/belfort.
- Duvelorium Grand Beer Café. Markt 1, 8000 Brugge, Belgium.
- Passage Bruges. Dweersstraat 26, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. https://passagebruges.com/nl/.
- Basilica of the Holy Blood. Burg 13, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. https://www.holyblood.com/welkom.
- Church of Our Lady Bruges. Mariastraat, 8000 Brugge, Belgium. https://www.museabrugge.be/.
