Bruges

Today we took an hour train ride to Bruges, which is a half hour farther than Ghent on the same train. We walked from the train station through the park in order to get to the city, which was really pretty, even in the winter.

The outskirts of the town were so cute with horses lined up ready to take visitors on carriage rides. Willow’s favorite part was a horse water spout, made just for the horses to drink from. There were also lots and lots of frites stands, many that had a stack of fries outside. We took pictures in front of a lot of them! We of course had to take a picture of the beer shop that had more than 500 types of beers!

We walked across the canals many times. We went to the Church of Our Lady, which was closed for church service until the afternoon.

We went across the Bonifacius bridge, a small, old bridge by the Church of Our Lady. There was a small ‘jail’ that the kids just had to take a picture in! Across from the bridge was a grouping of horse statues, all that were a little weird but we of course had to take pictures of them.

Walking down the side of the canal we saw some other statues, the carriages taking visitors for a ride, and really old buildings lining the water. It is so crazy that the water is just there with no street or sidewalk or anything between them and the water.

We got a great family picture on the bank of one of the canals! These are very rare, and I really like this picture.

We walked under this golden archway to get to the City Hall, which is a huge building!

Beside City Hall was the Basilica of the Holy Blood and a smaller chapel next to it. We went into the smaller chapel first because the Basilica was closed until 12 due to a church service. The chapel was a small, dark space with a few small side chapels. There wasn’t much to see here, so we then waited in line to get into the Basilica.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood was pretty. We were one of the first ones in, but we didn’t know that we were supposed to stay in line so we could see the holy blood. The Basilica houses a Catholic relic of holy blood, and there was a long line to see it (and you couldn’t take pictures). The relic was inside a glass tube with a priest sitting behind guarding it carefully. It didn’t really look like blood—it actually didn’t look like much of anything.

We walked across one more canal and then away from the city center. It was about 20 minutes to walk to the large river, but the walk was pleasant with lots of interesting buildings.

Willow found some pretty flower all in different colors. She wanted to pick them, but I told her that wouldn’t be the best idea given that they were someone’s actual flowers!

Beside the river was a surprise. Since we didn’t get to do the tour around the Netherlands I had planned that took us by different windmills, I figured we would like to see the windmills in Bruges. The kids always like it when we find a big green space to run and play, and today was no different. They got to run around in the big grassy area to see the three windmills that are lined up on the band of the river. None of the windmills were actually working, but they were still great to see up close.

We took a small break to talk to some older women from Germany. They were lovely people, and the kids rested at the picnic table and then went to pick some flowers.

The walk back to the city center took us by some nice scenery, including some beautiful wall art, a big statue, a church and some more interesting buildings with stairstep roofs.

We walked by the Belfry of Bruges and central marketplace in Burg Square, which still had a Christmas market up and running. We bought a pair of fluffy socks for Zoey for only 5 euros! We should have bought several pairs for that price but didn’t think of it at the time.

The main streets in town were getting a bit crowded. We went to one more chocolate store, the Chocolate Line, which we heard was one of the best in town. The chocolates here were also good! Maybe I just like chocolate.

We went to the church Saint Salvatorskathedraal, which had beautiful stained glass windows. I wish we could have stayed here longer, but we had a timed ticket for an activity that was rapidly approaching, so we had to go through rather quickly. Well, I’m sure the kids thought it was just enough time, but my mom and I could have spent another half hour admiring the stained glass.

We had only a few minutes to go through the Church of Our Lady, which we had passed by earlier in the day. This church has a Madonna and Child by Michelangelo as the altarpiece, and I was excited to see it. However, I didn’t realize that we had to pay a hefty price to go to the ‘museum’ part of the church where the altarpiece is. We decided not to do so, and just saw the front area of the church, which was still impressive.

We made our way to De Halve Mann Brewery, where we had tickets for a brewery tour! When in Belgium, we need to have fries, waffles, chocolate, and of course beer. After looking around this brewery was considered one of the best/most authentic tours, so we booked for it.

They first took us to the current area that is used, but since it was a weekend (and a holiday) the productions weren’t running today. They couldn’t keep up the production in this small building and it was becoming too cumbersome to get big trucks through the small cobblestone lanes of the old town, so the brewery made a two-mile long underground pipeline to a second plant. The project was crowdsourced, and those who contributed receive free beer from the brewery (how much beer depends on how much the donation was)!!

The rest of the tour was taking us through the history of the brewery and the process of making beer. It was very interesting, although the kids weren’t as entertained as the adults.

The kids did like this room, which had rails on the floor where they would roll the barrels from one side to another. The kids were the first ones into this room, and played choo choo trains on the rails before everyone else came in to the room.

The tour took us from the bottom basements of the building all the way to the rooftop. The guide said this is the third highest point in Bruges that tourists can get to after the church steeple and the bell tower. It was nice to get a rooftop view of the city; I really like getting to see the cities we visit from high up.

After the tour everyone got a ticket for a free beer! Their specialty is the Brugse Zot, which comes in a blonde, double (which is a red/brown), triple (which is a blonde color), and quadruple (dark brown). We had beer tickets for the kids too, so JonPaul and I each got 2.5 beers! I had a blonde and double, where JonPaul had two doubles and then we shared a third double. It was really good beer! My mom got a glass of wine, and she taught Zoey how to play the water goblets on her wine glass. Ronin and Zoey enjoyed playing with their toys on the couches, and I was glad we got to sit in the seating area by the fireplace to enjoy our beer.

Our walk back to the train station took us through some lovely streets that were lit up with spotlights, some of them colored. We walked through the Begijnhof, a convent for Benedictine nuns, which was really pretty. However, we got there after it was supposed to be closed even though the doors to the grounds were still open. We walked through the grounds, but when we got to the door on the other side it was closed and locked! So we had to walk all the way back to the first door we entered in, praying that it wouldn’t also be locked and we would be stuck! Luckily it was not, and we got to have a short adventure in the convent grounds.

We took the train back to Brussels, which was only an hour ride. It had sprinkled a bit on our way back to the station, so Ronin’s hair started to curl around his face. Of course I had to get a picture! I love it when his hair curls up, which is so cute!