Bruges - Day 1

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Mainly looked around town. As we now have a thing for steps and towers, we climbed another bell tower. Got very narrow in places. Much to Isabel's relief the bells didn't go off on the hour. It was interesting to see the mechanics inside a huge clock with four faces. Shall I tell you how it works? ... nah!

The big highlight was ice skating in one of the main squares. None of the kids had done it before and they did quite well. Of course Eileen had to show off her skating skill. I was just waiting for a fall, or one of those scenes from a Berenstein Bears book - but no - she did well and smiled a lot.

Looked around the shops, particularly the chocolate shops, but more importantly anywhere we could get relief from the cold. We are talking 0 to -4 here. Even spent 15 minutes in a book store with no English books!

Ended up at a model train club which had a bar, a friendly barman, nice bunch of locals and a model railway. Strange but true. Oh - and it was warm!! We shared a side dish of some kind of sea snail - closest thing to escargot for us. Amused ourselves watched Daniel trying to eat one with the promise of 2 Euros. I think it was in his mouth for about 15 minutes before he finally started chewing. It did eventually go down.

Then back to the main square. Around the ice skating rink were all these small stores either selling clothes, trinkets, food or drinks. So we had our dinner there which is lightly snowed watching the ice skating.

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Photos

Energised by mulled wine
It certainly helps in these freezing temperatures

Kids skating
Fist time and they got quite good

Kids skating
Plus bigger kid!

Even fancier
I should note that Daniel took this one. He's a growing lad!

Bruges
... and more snow fights

Comments

[The Woolnough's]

Bruges
Remember Eileen, all these chocolate shops are dangerous........... But gee, the snow must be great! Imogen is desperate to see snow even more now having seen Katie in the snow.