Rx-ipe: In Brugge

The movie, In Brugge, with Colin Farrell was definitely what sparked mine and Vin's interest in going to Brugge, and boy am I happy we went. I don't know if many places I go will compare to Venice but Brugge was a really cool place to visit and definitely the second best place we went to while over here. I'm not too sure how to explain just why it was so great, but it was. The people were very friendly and the food was great which I would say are two big parts in making a place great to visit.

Brugge is a small town, has that small town feel and it is really, really old. There's a couple great big old towers, one I think was built like 700 or 800 years ago and is the second tallest all brick building in the world. The only bad part about that one was that it was all covered except for the top because it was getting restored or something. It was just nice to walk around the old cobble stone streets and wonder around the town. Pretty much every other store was either a chocolate store, with fresh Belgium Chocolatier chocolates that were absolutely amazing, or beer stores with all kinds of different Belgium beers. We sampled a few of the beers and some of the chocolate and both were amazing, I definitely preferred the chocolate. I bought a box of chocolate to bring home with me and it is killing me not to open it up and eat it, we will see if it makes the journey back to the States.

We were only there Tuesday and Wednesday and then left Thursday so we didn't have a lot of time there but it was still great. Tuesday we spent the day just wondering around and sampling some of the local foods. We had lookwurst and fries with a Belgian specialty called stooflesaus on them. Both were really good, lookwurst was like a garlic sausage type thing and the stooflesaus was basically a gravy. Then for dinner we had escargot and the biggest pot of mussels of all time. Again, both of these dishes were amazing as well. Then for dessert we had Belgian waffles slathered in a chocolate sauce, you haven't had a Belgian waffle until you've had a Belgian waffle in Belgium.

Wednesday we actually biked from Brugge to the Netherlands. Pretty much everyone bikes in Brugge and there are a bunch of bike paths in and around the city that lead to all kinds of different places, like other small towns, the North Sea and to the Netherlands. I wasn't too sure how much I wanted to do it but Vin talked me in to it, and I'm definitely happy he did. We got to bike through some of the Belgian countryside and went to this small Dutch town called Stuis. It was really cool to see and do, we saw some windmills and other things we wouldn't of had the opportunity to if we didn't rent the bikes. The whole journey was about 25 miles or so round trip so it wasn't too exhausting, but my butt and knees are still sore from it. After that journey we pretty much rode around Brugge a little more and ate lunch there. This time we had bratwurst and fries and both were just as good as what we had for lunch the day before. For dinner wednesday we had rabbit in the flemish way. It was pretty much a rabbit stew and since it was on most every restaurant's menu we figured it was a local dish and we had to try it. It was actually really good, I never had rabbit before and it was actually really good. If the waiter would have told me it was chicken I would have believed him, so it really didn't seem like that exotic of a dish. We had another waffle for dessert and that was about it for day two in Brugge.

Thursday was mostly spent traveling back to London so not a whole lot to report. Overall, I loved Brugge, there was plenty do, eat and see. As usual enjoy some of the pictures from our time there.