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Published: November 14th 2010
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Beautiful Antwerp train station with 26 tracks! November 13, 2010
Well we made it to Africa and are writing this entry on the roof of our riad in the medina (old old old part of town) in Fez, Morocco. While it is tempting to absolutely explode about Morocco and our first 6 hours here, we're going to have to pull you through the drudgery of Brugges & Paris first. Fez is out of this world and we can't wait to share photos in our next entry!
Ok, so Brugges and Paris were of course not boring and in fact Brugges easily leaps into both of our top 10 list of cities around the world; it is stunning.
It's worth noting that we haven't been particularly lucky with the weather thus far... in fact until we tripped out of our RyanAir flight this morning into sunny Morocco we have had ~15 minutes of sun in our first 10 days... no joke. In addition, the full day we had in Paris was accompanied with winds of 50km/hr, rain and 6ºC. The weather wasn't much better in Brugges but nothing short of a hurricane was going to keep us in hemmed in.
We hopped on the train
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All look... no buy... very sparkly! in Roosendaal and made our way to Brugges via Antwerp. We only stopped in Antwerp briefly to take a look at its famous diamond district. Shop upon shop with glimmering displays shining at you like a...well, diamond, was quite a sight to see. No souvenirs from this stop, but it was still fun to take a peek. As an interesting aside, we have taken 5 train journeys and only 1 has been on time. This is unusual because it has been our experience that European (well at least northern European) trains run like clockwork... not so this trip and according to our friends and people we've met this is a trend. So, if you're planning train travel in Europe, you may want to leave a good 30-60 minutes between connections because odds are you will need them!
We arrived in Brugges in rain & wind and proceeded to walk 25 minutes with our luggage over cobble stone streets in the dark. Easy enough, however our handheld GPS ran out of power 5 minutes into the trip. iPhone to the rescue however and we arrived at Cote Canal, easily one of the most beautiful 'hotels' (really a B&B) we've ever
stayed in. Our hostess was great and informed us we were staying in a listed building from the 16th century.
Even with the cold weather and rain, we still loved our time in Brugges. Imagine a fairytale city that mixes of the best parts of Venice, Amsterdam and Paris with it's beautiful architecture, the picturesque canals, and history. If you like cheese, bikes, chocolate, beer, moules frites, or art, then you'll enjoy Brugges. We don't want to go on about the food and beer and chocolate and scenery and the minutia of our day to day activities... it's best we share Brugges in photos... ENJOY... we did!
Our original plan was to only spend one night in Belgium, then go to Epernay before heading to Paris but the nice thing about traveling on the fly is that you have the option to change your plans when you find somewhere you'd like to stay at and explore some more, so that's what we did which meant we'll have to save the Champagne region for another trip.
It doesn't seem just to give so little attention to a city as marvelous as Paris, but as both of us had
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400 beers to choose from... overwhelming! been there before there isn't too much to say. We did a few touristy things – went up the Eiffel Tower and a Seine river cruise, but spent the rest of our time strolling through the streets and exploring different neighbourhoods and enjoying french cuisine. Two memorable meals included one that was a recommendation in Lonely Planet for a small brasserie which packed in a small crowd of about 50 every night as local musicians performed wonderfully moving music, and another fine restaurant recommended by friends that served food so divine and a dessert of soufle glace a l'orange that we'll dream about for slightly longer than it will take us to pay off the meal!
One last note on Paris... it's looking a bit tired. Of course any city 500+ years old should look a bit tired, but metro stations were dirty and unkept. Underpasses had buckets collecting drops from leaky roofs. The city in general looked badly in need of a face lift or three. Suffice to say, the French have not be busy investing in their infrastructure and are falling behind their northern European brethren. This of course doesn't mean Paris is inexpensive... far from it!
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View looking at our B&B We trust this finds you all well and we CAN'T wait to share our African experiences soon.
J&S.
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Charlotte
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Hola!
Hey guys, I've been enjoying reading your travel updates. It sounds like you're having an amazing time! It's all very exciting indeed! I'm looking forward to hearing about Morocco. All is well over here - you're definitely not missing anything. Have fun and travel safe!! Charlotte xoxo