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Published: June 10th 2006
Birthday Drinks
Birthday drinks with Monique, Sarah, Me, Mags and Sharon (taking the photo).It was my birthday on Thursday and boy did I have a great one! I got lots of phone calls and messages and felt very special! I had to work, but afterwards some of the girls from work took me out for drinks, and then I met up with Kath and Graham at London Bridge for a couple more and a fabulous dinner.
This weekend saw me heading off to Brugge in Belgium with Ed, Matt, Monique and Chris. We set off from London Bridge on Friday night in a hire car towards Folkestone, to catch the train through the channel tunnel (or ‘chunnel’ to those in the know) to Calais. Catching the train was a surreal experience. Everyone drives on to the train in their cars, and basically sits in their cars until you arrive in Calais on the other side. It feels like you are moving, but being in the tunnel there are no external references to give you an idea of how fast you are moving!
We stayed Friday night in Calais and then tackled the 1 hour drive (after a little shopping!) to Brugge in Belgium. In Calais, I was a little nervous to practice
my French, but I managed to order myself some breakfast without being laughed at! After having been stuck in London for so long, it was great to get out and be in some open spaces and surrounded by green!
Brugge was everything I’d imagined and a little bit more. Apparently it’s Belgium's most visited town and it was easy to see why. There are some amazingly well preserved medieval buildings; about 500 years ago the river silted which meant that progress in Brugge ceased as people at businesses moved elsewhere. The whole historic centre of Brugge was added to Unesco's World Heritage List in 2000.
We managed to successfully navigate our way to Brugge (driving on the right side of the road) with only one small “almost” accident and then spent the day wandering around exploring the town. First stop was a boat cruise through the canals and then a long and lazy lunch. I indulged in the local speciality of mussels (very scrumptious) a couple of glasses of wine and settled in to enjoy the atmosphere. I even managed to get a little sunburnt!
After lunch we did a little more wandering, checked out the antique
Cruise
Chris, Monique, Ed and Matt enjoying the cruise stalls and then headed into one of Brugge’s many churches (Church of Our Lady). The church (built between the 13th and 15th centuries) has this amazing spire which dominates the Brugge skyline and contains Michelangelo's Carrara marble sculpture of the Madonna and Child. The sculpture was made in 1504 and was the only work of Michelangelo’s that left Italy during his lifetime.
Following a little more retail therapy, we checked into our hotel for a nanna nap and got ready to hit the town. We had a few drinks at the bar suggested by our taxi driver and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the canals. Our very merry party then set off in search of some food and indulged in another gorgeous meal (after Chris and Matt visited practically every restaurant in town to see what would be the best before finally settling down at the first one we looked at!!). The Belgians really know how to do food! After dinner we went for a bit of a boogie in a kind of strange and very packed bar with all the locals! The DJ seemed to have ADHD as he changed songs every 30 seconds or so! There were
at least 4 men to every female in the bar (resulting in a little bit of a predatory atmosphere) and a couple of strange guys thought it would be ok just to touch my hair! Mon and I were lucky to have the guys there to protect us!
Our final day in Brugge was a little more mellow, we walked about town soaking up the surroundings, indulged in some real Belgian waffles for breakfast and sampled some of the famous Brugge chocolate (definitely worth the hype!).
All up Brugge was magnificent. Although packed with other tourists, it was a beautiful city that was well worth the visit. Two thumbs up… fine holiday fun! Thanks Ed, Matt, Mon and Chris for one of my all time favourite weekends!
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