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Published: April 24th 2011
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The train trip from Brussels to Bruges was lovely, looking out over the farmland lush with green grass and before I knew it the train was pulling into Bruges train station. My hostel was located on the other side of Bruges and the directions were to get on the bus and ask the driver to stop at “Bauhaus“. Following the instructions I did just that and the bus set off. Driving through the Old Town of Bruges I began to get excited, this town was beautiful with its canals and beautiful architecture, the town looked like it was created for a fairytale. We arrived at my designated stop and the bus driver gestured for me to come to the front to talk to him, the lovely chap was giving me exact walking directions to my hostel! Obviously, he is quite used to the backpackers jumping on the bus and heading in the same direction.
I hit the hostel and left my bags behind and headed straight into town to see this city by foot. Given that the weather was yet again perfect. I decided that I wanted to join the hordes of tourists on the canal rides and was surprised
that a 45min ride was only six euro fifty – this was a bargain in my eyes, given that there had been many other attractions for which I had paid a lot more and were a lot less exciting. We travelled up and down the canals with the boat operator given a description of what we were seeing, it would have been great if I could hear him, but the ride was great nonetheless.
My hostel had their own restaurant, which was also open to the public, so I decided to eat dinner there my first night. We were provided with a voucher that gave a free beer tasting sampler if you ordered dinner, so I started tasting my first Belgian beers, two of them nice the other not so (who makes Cherry beer?) After dinner I headed into the bar to have another quiet Hoegaarden, which I had quite liked, and made friends with a local rugby team who were celebrating a win from earlier that day. They took me under their wing, which was a bad thing, and I ended up sampling many different beers for the remainder of the night.
The following afternoon I joined
a free walking tour on offer by the hostel – again with the expectation that you tip what you believe the tour is worth, and was joined by three other travellers, two from Australia and one from Ireland. The tour was based loosely on visiting famous scenes from the movie “In Bruges” it would probably have helped if I had watched the movie, but given I had never heard of it, I was at a little bit of a loss. The tour was really great though, we got to see some of the sights of Bruges, had some good explanations of those sights and were then shown a number of places where you could have a great meal at a good price (Bruges being a travellers city is certainly expensive in the key tourist areas). That evening I attended a beer tasting session and was once again joined by the other two Aussies, plus several others who were travelling from Canada and the United States. We learnt lots about the local beers and then continued on well into the night cementing our new found knowledge.
Day three I knew that I really needed to visit some of the key
attractions in town, so I headed off to The Church of our Lady to see Madonna with Child, the only work of art of Michelangelo outside of Italy. I also went to the Holy Blood Chapel where I touched the vial that is said to hold a drop of Jesus' blood. Whether true or not, it felt like quite a special moment. To finish off the day I went to see the foundations of an old church that are in the basement of the Crowne Plaza hotel.
Day four I spent time again wandering the city before joining a tour of De Halve Maan, the only active brewery still remaining in Bruges. This brewery produces Bruges de Zot which became one of my favourite beers whilst in Bruges, although my favourite was definitely Westmalle Triple one of the many Trappist beers.
Sadly, I knew the day would come when I would have to leave Bruges. Feeling a little down that I was leaving I boarded a train to make my way to Ghent, another city which I had been told was beautiful. Sadly, I found that Ghent did not live up to my expectations and I spent my
one day in Ghent shopping for new springtime clothing - an activity I did enjoy!!
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