Where's Christi? Can you find me?
After everyone returned home to Canada Andre still had a few days off, so we decided to have a little getaway in Brugge. We took the train Tuesday morning and stayed over for one night. The Lamirandes had been to Bruges while they were here and left us the guidebook they used for sightseeing. We hit all the “hotspots” that interested us in the book, including a small statue of the Virgin Mary by Michelangelo, the lace makers club, and the blood of Christ. It was our first time bringing such a little guidebook around with us (we usually look into what we’d like to see on the web before we go) and it gave us a fun and different perspective not only because of the interesting “hotspots of Bruges” but also because every other tourist we saw had the same book!
View of the Canal and a packed Boat Tour
When we arrived we walked around the city, saw the aforementioned statue, and went on a Brewery tour. The De Halve Maan Brewery is the last family Brewery left in Brugges since the end of the Second World War. The tour was wonderful; our guide was an incredibly passionate elder man, and near the end of the tour we were taken to the roof for a beautiful view of the city. We were also given a delicious pint afterwards of their award-winning brew.
View from the top
After our pint we walked around the grand place and visited the chapel with Christ’s blood before continuing along the canals to the lace-making club. It was a very interesting spot somewhat like your typical Canadian Legion, but you pay to get in and see little old ladies making lace. It was a bit of an odd thing, even more so with the adjacent church modeled after one in Jerusalem and housing a replica of Christ’s tomb.
We then stopped for a snack at a café along one of the canals to watch the swans and try more of the award-winning De Halve Mann brew. We also made a pit stop to buy some delicious Belgium chocolate.
For dinner we went to the Grand Kaffee de Passage. Andre had a rack of ribs and I had a carbonade flammande; my favourite regional dish en/fr. We completed our dinner with a café; too stuffed for anything else. We spent the rest of our evening trying to walk off our dinner along the canals, which are beautifully lit up at night.
The next day we went to the local market in the grand place and grabbed a waffle and a café. We had just enough time before our train home to check out the Minnewater gardens and nunnery on the edge of town.
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