Breath Taking Bruges

 So we arrived home from Dublin with one day to wash and dry our clothes (visualise our apartment as a chinese laundry and you're close to how it looked) and get to bed early enough in order to be up bright and early to hop on a train for Belgium. We were very excited as we knew that this was going to be one holiday where food was going to play a key role!

We got to London St Pancras station which would be our departure point for Belgium with plenty of time to spare. Go us! We usually end up running late. We pick up our tickets and go to find breakfast, with 30 minutes we head towards the platform... what do you mean check in? Almost closed? Yes we didn't realise that going to another country on a train, just like on a plane, requires check in, baggage checks and passport checks. Luckily the people took pity on us and rushed us through! We arrived on the train with 2 minutes to spare... few!

Changing trains in Brussels and continuing on to Bruges was simple and we without too much hassle find our way to the hotel and drop off our backpacks. We spent the first day doing some initial wandering, familiarising ourselves with the local area and taking note of particularly interesting looking chocolate shops. We also visited the Diamant (diamond) Museum and De Halve Maan (the half moon) brewery. If you've been a keen follower of our blog you'll have noticed that we have started frequenting breweries which is quite amusing as I don't like beer at all and Jackie's not too keen on it either. That being said, we both now possess quite a lot of beer knowledge... such as the hops plant (1 of the 4 main ingredients of beer) is actually part of the cannabis plant family.

Look how happy we are with our Belgian beer! 

Yep we drank it all! Took us like a whole hour to finish.

Our second day was filled with all the things that make Bruges such a great place to visit. We started at the Basilica of the Holy Blood, this church claims to have a vial of Jesus' ACTUAL blood! Although I was sceptical we went to have a look and unfortunately we missed out of seeing Jesus' ACTUAL blood, we did see the casket/ alter it is housed in (we think, signage was pretty poor).

Basilica of the Holy Blood.
Home of Jesus' ACTUAL blood (sceptical!)

We took a canal tour boat and were able to enjoy the beautiful scenery on offer and we also went to the Friet Museum (museum of hot chips basically) and the Choco-Story Museum (chocolate museum). The two museums were actually both really interesting and we enjoyed/ indulged in the subject matter of both museums frequently over our time in Bruges.

Jackie and I on the canal boat

Some of the scenery

Enjoying the best cooked chips of the
trip. YUM!

We got them at the Friet Musem. The
secret is to double fry them!

The next day we decided to take advantage of the rail services and take a trip in to Brussels for the day. Sadly our excitement and expectations were not met and we left with rather a bad attitude towards the city. We started with the Musee des Instruments de Musique. This museum housed an enormous number of musical instruments from all over the world and had the potential to be really interesting and exciting. Unfortunately for both of us the information was all presented in either Dutch or French, which meant poor Jackie had to try to translate everything back into English for me. Our next destination was much better... we were on our way to see Mannekin Pis! Brussels has this statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain, he is regarded as symbolic of Brussels' sense of freedom and care free nature. Our favourite thing in particular was the fact that over time the city has amassed over 800 costumes for Mannekin Pis to wear, from Spanish Matador to Israeli Sheik. At the Maison du Roi we were able to see around 150 of these costumes in an ever changing exhibit.

Oh Mannekin Pis, you're so cute!

A rather amusing chip shop we saw that
was marketing them selves really well for
the area! 

On our final day in Bruges we decided to visit a few little shops Jackie had read about and climb the Belfry tower in the main square. We started at the tower where we waited in line for ages. The wait wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the smell. At this point I think I should mention just how bad Bruges seemed to smell... actually smell doesn't quite cover it, I think the word stench is a more accurate portrayal. We couldn't quite figure out just how a place could stink so badly, hence the rather tongue in cheek title. Anyway the tower seemed to be a focal point for the stench, luckily the smell didn't reach the top of the tower and the view made it worth while. We then went looking for a particular lace shop the guide book recommended and instead found a Subway. Not deterred we searched for the Tin Tin shop and instead found a cafe. At this point we gave up and revisited some chocolate shops we had discovered earlier and set about spending what ever money we had left on stocking up for the future.

At the top of the tower looking up at the bells.
One did start ringing when we where up there
and it was deafening!

Looking up at the Belfry tower

So with bellies and backpacks full of Belgium chocolate we headed back for the train station and back towards England ready for our final Summer adventure in North Cyprus.