Bruges - Days 43-44

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I considered going to Rotterdam before leaving the Netherlands, but I decided on Bruges as my next stop after Amsterdam. I'd heard a lot of good things about the city, so I thought I'd give it a chance.

I took the afternoon train from Amsterdam and after another painless border crossing found myself in Bruges at dusk. At the train station I met up with another backpacker from Boston, so we walked over to Snuffels hostel in the city center. It took us a good 40 minutes to get there because we kept getting lost in the dark, winding streets of Bruges. The streets were also totally deserted at that time of night (8!) so it was kind of cool to see without tourists milling about.

After getting to the hostel we both went next door to do some laundry and then we sat around at the bar enjoying 1€ happy hour. After a couple hours of that, a bunch of us went out to a local bar, which I was shocked to find was packed with people because the town was (still) completely dead at midnight. We hung out there until 3 when about half of us left and went to bed. Apparently, the other group from the hostel stayed out until almost 6am.

I spent the next day wandering around Bruges enjoying the narrow, winding streets and cool old buildings. It's a perfect city for walking around in, because you can get yourself lost, but eventually you'll reach the canal that runs around the city and then you can orient yourself. I was also suprised at how few tourists were around. Apparently, Bruges is quite the tourist hotspot in the summer. I guess I'm starting to get into the off season, so the tourist crowds are drying up a bit, which is nice. Even in September, though, it wasn't that bad in most places I've been. I had trouble finding a hostel a couple times (Dublin, Cologne) and in both cases there were big events going on in town.

In the evening, I went on the free tour, which was hosted by a Belgian named Ziggy. The guy was hilarious, and even though the tour followed almost exactly the same route I had taken earlier in the day, it was a totally different experience, complete with tall tales about alligators in the canals. He had a number of people hooked with that one too; they bought the entire story about an alligator that the city added to the canal to combat the giant sewer rats that were eating all the swans. Funny as hell. The tour lasted about two hours, and after we got back to the hostel I bought Ziggy a drink instead of giving him a cash tip as a couple of people had done. I was actually a bit suprised to see that most people didn't give him anything. I mean, I doubt he's getting paid to do the tour, and it takes 2 hours of his time. I guess tipping is not really prevalent in a lot of other cultures, and so people don't realize that it's probably appropriate in a case like that. Especially since he did do a really good job.

The next morning I had some chocolate pancakes for breakfast that were delicious. I got them at the convenience store down the street, and I was impressed at how good they really were. I saw them a couple times in Bruges, so I think they're some sort of local specialty -- chocolate certainly is.

That's about it for Bruges. I thought it was a nice, laid-back city where I could have stopped for a while, but I wanted to get on to southern europe so I headed off after 2 nights.

Stay tuned for Brussels.

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Photos

Windmills in Bruges
Apparently they bought this one for 1€ from the Dutch.