Belgium - Day 3

Another day tearing through a town as tourists! Unfortunately, I realise I'm going to have to return because despite knowing that Colin Farrel and Brendan Gleeson viewed Bosch's The Last Judgement at the Groeningemuseum during In Bruges, I didn't go see it myself. Oh well!

Walking in from the train station...it's so cute!

And picturesque!

Does this mean I grew up on a farm and am happen to be retarded? (movie reference)

For lunch we had some Belgian food.

Tomate-crevette - tomatoes stuffed with shrimp. After yesterday's protein bomb, I really needed some roughage!

MOULES-FRITES!!! YAY!!!!! Unfortunately, the restaurant was a bit disappointing. The sauce wasn't as good as we were used to :(

Strolling around the town, we were pleasantly surprised to find that many shops were actually open. It wasn't just stores that would appeal to tourists either - I nearly bought a pair of boots! And lots of chocolate.

Marzipan 'hams' in the window of a chocolaterie.

Chocolate genitals were also for sale!

Not being fat people, we went to Market Square to climb the Belfort.

So cute!

366 steps to get to the top. I told Marene that I am a thundering dome and tower climber, having done so in Paris, Rome, Florence, St. Petersburg...

No smoking, ice cream, mugs, dogs or hearts allowed.

The view of the square from the first level (I think. It could have been the second).

At the top! It was pretty cold and windy up there actually :(

The view!

My observations - Bruges is so pretty!

And flat!

A bell in the tower. I was advised not to be up there when they go off at each quarter hour. It gets loud.

So instead I sat amazed watching the mechanism.

Which was actually pretty amazing.

Our next stop: The Basilica of the Holy Blood, which has a vial of Jesus' blood.

We looked at the blood. It was quite bright for a sample that's nearly 2000 years old. 

But since it was late afternoon and I still had to check into my flight, we spent the next hour strolling around before taking a train back to Brussels for dinner.

I know I sound as though I'm on repeat...

But Bruges is pretty.

All those canals and water...

So relaxing...

The original plan was to have dinner together and then make our way to the airport. This was derailed by the train taking 40 minutes longer than scheduled, leaving me slightly freaked out at the prospect of having to sprint my way through to get to my gate if we stopped for dinner. (I actually saw a few ppl sprinting through so I guess some people didn't realise there was an issue.) Instead, we got what is apparently another icon of Belgian cuisine - Bicky Burger + Frites. This is another thing I regret not photographing. Bicky burger consists of a DEEP FRIED mystery meat patty (internet investigation says a combo of chicken, pork and horse - must be why it was so lekker!), with some salad, american (i.e. plastic) cheese and three different sauces. The Friterie we went to went one better - he also fried the patty AFTER deep frying it! Then he slammed our frites INTO the burger and slathered it with more sauce! That was a bit inconvenient since we had to eat all the frites before getting to the burger but...DAYUM! Even Marene was impressed with the final result. It's perfect drunk food and really hit the spot on the train to the airport. 

I know that when people think of Belgium, the words 'fun' and 'excitement' don't spring to mind. But I had a really fun and exciting long weekend there. Love you guys! I'll try to come back when the weather gets better ;)

One last surprise - if you wanted to charge your devices at the airport, you had to work for it. Yes, I spent 30 minutes going great guns on it but the pedals were a bit too low for my short legs :(