Brugge, Belgium - Venice of the North

Sorry for the lapse in travel posts from my trip to Belgium and Germany! I can't seem to keep Deb in line - she's always too busy to spend time with me! Darned dissertation!!!!!!!!!
And - can you believe this: she didn't manage to get any photos of me into this post???? That is ridiculous, and calls for a coup! I'll just take over this blog!!!! (Oh, wait - I just realized, I can't; I don't have fingers. Oh well...... I'll just push her to get going on the next post so you all can see me, Gumballhead, again soon!).

Anyhow, back to our journey through Belgium:

After our wonderful visit to Westvleteren, we hopped back on the train and headed up to charming, picturesque Brugge, on the northern side of the country. It is very well preserved in its mostly medieval state. The town has a lot of scenic canals, beautiful churches, real antique windmills, and is very walkable and pleasant. It is often criticized as being "Disneyesque," and I must say I could agree with that. However, it's well worth the trip to see it, and there are lots of fun things for tourists to do and see - canal boat tours, horse-drawn carriage tours, shopping, dining, a chocolate museum, a brewery tour, and a few really wonderful places to try a good selection of Belgian beers. The city center is mostly pedestrianized (is that a word, Gumballhead? I don't know, and I don't care. As I've said before, it's my blog and I'll make up words if I want to!). We spent a couple of days there, anyways, and had a wonderful time.

Our hotel (Ensor) was wonderfully located, within a short walk of the train station (though we discovered that pulling wheeled luggage across cobblestone streets leaves something to be desired - you are likely to break a wheel off or injure your wrist! If you go there, take the short bus ride). It was close to a central shopping and dining area (t'Zand) and sits on a quiet, pretty canal. Here's a view from our window:One of the owners was working at the desk, and he was very friendly and helpful, producing maps and writing down addresses of places we wanted to see.


Unfortunately, that is where the charm of this place ended. It was sadly in need of renovation - to the point that we felt our room was actually full of dangers. For example, a slippery shower that was elevated above the bathroom floor, with no grab bars, a glass door, and a showerhead that kept falling off. A bad fall just waiting to happen. Not to mention the twin beds pushed up against the windows, which have no screens. Because there is no air conditioning, we pretty much had to open them, and I could easily imagine a child falling from our third-story window. Ugh!!! Thankfully, we didn't have children with us for this leg of our journey. The old linoleum floor also had big gaps in it. Ah, what we do to have the travel experience!!!!


In short, wouldn't recommend the place unless they do some serious renovation. It looked like there were other places to stay closer to the city center, and even though you couldn't drive to them, you could catch a bus for the short ride very easily from the train station or the large nearby public parking garages, where most everyone must leave their cars. This city reminded me a lot of Venice. Of course, we cats don't take much to water, in general, but Deb and Jeff really liked it. Below is a picture and a detail of the hotel we WISH we'd stayed in:The first night, after checking in at the hotel, we headed to a "must-see" destination: t'Brugge Beerjte. This is a favorite local beer bar that has an amazing selection and very knowledgeable bartenders. We read about it in Tim Webb's book, The Good Beer Guide to Belgium. In fact, there's a photo of the owner, Daisy, in the book, and we had the good fortune to sit at the bar and chat with her all evening. She was warm and friendly, and we ended up staying until well past the posted closing time (it was weird, sneaking back into our hotel late at night, trying not to wak the innkeeper, honestly!!!!). Daisy was well aware of her notoriety among American and British beer tourists, and didn't seem to mind the attention. But can you believe we didn't get a photo with her???? Duh oh!!! Travel guru Rick Steves wrote an article about Brugge not too long ago, and featured this particular bar. In fact, one of us probably sat on the same bar stool he sat on only a few weeks before we were there. Here's a couple of shots of the bar:Did ya notice all the different shapes of beer glasses? Yup - every beer style has its own glass. Many breweries even have their own glasses, with the brewery's name silk screened on them.

While there, we were introduced to what may have been the favorite beer of the entire trip (even when compared to Westvleteren 12 and Cantillon's gueuze!!!!). That was Rodenbach's Vin de Cereal - a wonderful barrel-aged wheat wine. It's an amazing sour, comes wrapped in paper, and sold in Brugge (we found it in a couple of locations) for 7 euros for a single-serving (about 11oz, I'd guess) - which was about 11 US dollars at the time. Therefore, we didn't drink much of it! We were told it will not be exported to the U.S., though we recently have heard rumors to the contrary. We'll have to see what happens on that. My advice, though, is if you see it in a store this winter, jump on it!!!!! :)

Our second day, we visited several places. For now, I'll just post a few pics of what we saw as we walked the city and then took one of those fun, but touristy canal boat rides. The scenery is great from both perspectives (from boat or on foot!).

I'll finish today's posting up with a teaser for my next post! Here's a view from the roof of the De Halve Maan brewery in Brugge:What was Gumballhead doing on the roof of the brewery? Tune in to find out! I promise to have more pictures of myself up here soon!

~ GBH