Advertisement
Published: July 16th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Day #6 - Brugges and Gent, Belgium
After following a bad day it is always nice to come back with a good one, and today was a good one. No trip is without mishaps I am sure, especially one of this magnitude and complexity. We were able to get our minor issues out of the way early today, I think you will laugh at this one. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I am an inexperienced drive with a standard transmission, which is seemingly all you can rent here. I ahve been pretty good with it so far but today I had some issues. Upon leaving the hotel this morning to drive into old town Brugge, I needed to back my car out of the parking stall. This seemingly easy task was a painstaking process that took about 10 minutes and the help of some friendly local Belgians. I can see on the stick shift that there is a reverse gear listed, however I could not get the gear to go into reverse. I tried and tried for 10 minutes. Continually ending up inching the car forward until I had it launched up on the curb. I
just could not understand how to get the car to go backwards. I finally asked for some help. As many of you may already be aware there is a simple solution to this problem. There is a little knob that must be pulled up in order to be able to shift in to reverse. It is part of the mechanism of the gear shifter and very well hidden. Upon having a local show me how to drive it was very easy to reverse the car. How embarrassing, everyone had a good laugh at me 😊 The car, however is very nice. A French made Renault Twingo. I have driven over 500km and still have only used less than half a tank of gas.
Bruges is a very cool city. The old town is full of old buildings, history, shopping, markets, and cafes. It is also without a doubt the city that has all of their attractions so close together. It is a great city to just walk around in. Our first stop was to Choco-story, the chocolate museum. We of course could not leave Belgium without delving into one of the greatest achievements of these people, Belgian
chocolate. The museum was a history of chocolate, with chocolate art work, chocolate making demonstrations, and informative videos. The museum although not fantastic is probably worth the hour you will spend there and the 8 euro charge (4 for kids). You also receive a free chocolate at the end of the demo and that is probably worth a Euro on its own.
Next we went to the Belfry. A 15th century bell tower and climbed all the stairs to the top of it. I have walked up to the top of cathedral spires and bell towers in the past in Spain, Italy and now Belgium, so I knew what I was getting into. The stair way was circular all the way up and very narrow. It was kinda scary but also a lot of fun. We got to the top of the tower which must have been 20 stories high until I relaized I was on a 600 year old stone tower and no longer wanted to be up there. It however, is not nearly as scary as the Familia Sangria in Barcelona, that one is messed up.
The drive in old town Bruges
and finding parking was an adventure. The GPS took us into the main square (A UNESCO site, and there were thousands of people all around the car, of which I was the only car in the square. I felt very uncomfortable as I felt like I should not be driving in there, although later I did see other cars in there as well, not fun to drive in. Picture trying to drive your car through the crowd of a rock concert.
Sydney and I spent the day sightseeing and shopping, something I am starting to realize she loves to do. We shopped for clothes and souvenirs and other sorts of things, as well as Belgian chocolates.... mmmmm.
Upon finishing that we drove to our hotel in Gent, and boy did we hut the jackpot with this one.... thank you booking.com. We are in a 4 start hotel that I booked online just 3 days ago and we are only paying 40 Euros a night. We are only 4 blocks from old town Gent which could not be more perfect. We took a stroll down to old Gent in the evening and enjoyed a few
sites there. We ate dinner at a Belgian fries restaurant that we have seen a few times, Mister Friet. They know how to do french fries. How it works is you order fries, then you choose sauce and toppings. I had fries topped with curry ketchup and onions, Sydney had fries topped with béarnaise sauce and also added a side of these Belgian meatball things. Very Tasty. I had a beer with mine and Syd had an ice tea and it was only 11 Euros, good deal seeing how expensive things have been so far here. The beer I had was called Jupiler and only cost 1 euro 50, the same price as the ice tea, why cant beer be this cheap at home. The beer was good.
Our Assessment of Bruges
Kyle - 8.5/10 - "Great little city with easy access to all of the sites in a small area. Its a UNESCO site, how do you go wrong?"
Syd - 9/10 - "Don't run over the people, they are everywhere." (easier said than done Syd, buy I haven't killed anyone yet)
Our assessment of Belgium
Kyle - 7/10 - "It is a quiet country with some nice cities to visit. It is tough to give a fair assessment as we really only have seen Bruges and Gent. We will sadly miss Brussels. The food is better here than in Holland, but not as good as I have had in other countries. The English is not as common here but most people can pigeon it out when needed. French goes a long way here, when I can pigeon it out.
Syd - 9/10 - Looks a lot like Canada.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0437s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb