Castles and princess

---

Belgians are weird, they put mayonaise on their fries and charge people to use the restrooms. They at least did Brugge right. It's a town straight from Walt Disney fairy tale. With towers and turrets, ivy covered old walls, swans swimming in the calm river that meanders through town, stone bridges, and windmills at the edge of town. I wouldn't be surprised if I had bumped into Cinderella, having lost her glass slipper yet again.

During the day hordes of tourists fill its narrow streets and alleys, in the cool evenings the locals and tourists alike bring their children to the grandest square I've seen yet to listen to the chimes of the bell tower.

We spent two days there, just relaxing. Well, sort of. We went hunting for Chris' Birkenstock and we probably visited every single shoe store in town. No luck though.

We visited the church where, allegedly, a couple of drops of Christ' blood are kept. Kept in a little phial, it's on display a few hours a day. Chris joined the line of people to see it while I took pictures of the church. It was the prettiest, little church I've ever seen. It puts some churches in Italy to shame. By this time, I've forgiven the Belgians for every 30 cents I paid to use their restrooms. They surely know how to do churches. And all of it was free. If this had been anywhere else (Italy), they would've charged everyone to enter the church, charge extra to see the blood, and the line would've been twice as long.

I can't believe Chris didn't ask the priest how/where they obtained the Christ' blood. Wouldn't that be the very first thing in everybody's mind? But I guess it wasn't exactly the most appropriate time and place. Still, I would've asked.

From Brugge, we went to Namur. I was expecting a village like place, surrounded by rolling hills and farms. But Namur is a bustling, busy city, with the ruin of a citadel above the town that has been turned into a tourist trap. There were no walks, acitivities, and events that didn't include the citadel. Citadel this, citadel that...
It was quite a walk to get up top and we tried to hitch but no cars would stop for us. I blamed it all on Chris who hadn't shaved for a couple of days, LOL. It got too hot so we turned back before we got to the top, it was too touristy anyway, even for us. And by letting cars drive up all the way to the top, it kinda cheapens the whole experience, you know what I mean?

So we wandered around in the city centre. Still looking for Birkenstock, we stopped by the first shoe store we found. EUREKA! There it was, sitting innocently on the shelf, no: 43, black strap, Birkenstock sandals. Our search has ended. Silently I thank the Almighty. No more being dragged from shoe store to shoe store.

Shortly afterward, it started raining. Chris switched back to wearing his shoes, not wanting to get his new sandals wet. We spent the rest of the evening watching Gladiator back at the hostel while it continued raining cats and dogs outside. Isn't that weird? Just last week we were getting roasted alive in Greece.

We left first thing in the morning. Most of Namur still left unexplored. Oh well. Move on to bigger and better thing: Amsterdam.

---

Comments

[sonnya]

patat
Caarroo................I love the belgian fries with mayonaise......it's patat met mayonaisse rite?? soo goooddd................u should like it alsoo... just be carefull coz it's so fatty...huehehee... enjoy ur last days trip.....