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The Brugge cruise boat
We went on this little beauty, and our captain reckons, "A herring a day keeps the doctor away." I will stick with the apple thanks!Well there are two computers at this hostel and two of us, so it's a one man job today, sorry!
I'll start with the bus ride from London, we were up at 3.45am on Tuesday for Terence to take us to East Croydon station. It's surprising how many Londoners begin their commute at 5am...depressing.
6am saw us reach London Victoria station, from where we had to find our way to the Victoria Coach Station - a short walk and our first with our backpacks on our backs!
The coach was on time, roomy and half empty, so that was nice. We stopped just before leaving England to do the passport thing, the only EU stamp I'll get! Sniff. Then the coach got onto the Eurotunnel train thing and when that got going, boy it was weird, you know you're moving but you're sitting on a stationary bus!
We finally reached Paris mid-afternoon and then had to find our way to our hostel - I spoke French! Appalling, terrible French, and yes my first sentence was 'Bonjour, pardon, parlais vous Anglais?' but tragically the answer was 'non'. Luckily all I was asking for was two Metro tickets and
Brugge cruise
This is me on a Brugge cruise. It was nice even if it was overcast. they are a flat rate so all I had to manage was 'Deux billet' and I was understood...when you don't have coins for the ticket machine you are forced to talk to a real Frenchman!
There followed more walking with the backpacks, two train changes and another hike...oh did I mention the pouring rain and Singapore-like humidity? We finally reached our hostel in the knowledge that we won't have to do that backpacking lugging again in our trip until we are at the arse end of it.
The St Christopher Hostel in Paris is brand new (opened in January) so the rooms are really nice, curtained beds, your own reading lights and power points. We met a couple of roomies in our 8 bed room, the noisiest occupants saved themselves for when we were trying to sleep...
We had delicious hot cheesy crepes for dinner and hit the sack. Up early again in time for breakfast and our 8am bus to Bruges, our first Busabout leg - only to find at 7.50am the bus had come in 5 hours late the night before and so would leave late because of European driving regulations (the driver must have
Brugge cruise
Isn't she lovely?? Rohani is all right too! enough rest). Two and a half hours later we were finally off, with only 11 on the bus - bliss! We got all our Busabout paraphernalia - swipe pass, special Lonely Planet book, phone card, blah blah and spent the day cruising in comfort watching Friends, Scrubs and listening to our somewhat clueless guide...good fun.
We arrived in Bruges two hours late and faced an unexpected 10 minute backpack lug - Busabout is supposed to be 'door to door' to the hostels - turns out this driver felt like pulling up on the main road and leaving us to haul arse to the hostel, 'Snuffels'.
Well, the hostel. A rickety, winding, frankly terrifying staircase takes you to your room. To reach the (single, unisex) shower block you must come back downstairs and through the bar and reception area. Nice.
Anyway time's running out so I'll cover our full day in Bruges quickly - um, it's beautiful, stunning, there are no fast food joints and we love it. We've eaten moules frites, fries and mayo, chocolate, waffles, drunk beer and done a lot of walking.
Today we checked out the chocolate museum (excellent) taken a canal tour,
Say cheese
"Cheeeeese!" been to a Flemish artist museum, seen a Michelangelo sculpture (the only one outside Italy) and been to a church where they keep some of Christ's blood.
Amsterdam tomorrow - more soon!
Love
Roho
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