A beautiful day in Bruges, Belgium

It was about a 45 minute walk from where we had been parked to get to the center of Bruges, so we drove in to try and find a closer spot. If it was only Ruth and I, we probably would have walked it. But we figured with Cameron, we should probably try to get closer. 

And we got lucky, managing to find free on street parking that saved us a half an hour walk each way.

Ruth had marked off six or seven attractions she wanted to see, and we set off walking.

First stop was the Smedenpoort. This is one of the four original entrance gates to the city.

Approaching Smedenpoort.

Originally built between 1297-1299.

But rebuilt several times since then.

Along the way, we came across a brand new LEGO store. Of course Cameron was interested in that...

Lego reproduction of Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.

Lego reproduction of The Belfort here in Bruges.

This one is built with over 50,000 Lego pieces and took two university students over 800 hours to build!

Can you see Cameron?

The building in the background is the concert hall.

Scenery along the way.

This is a photogenic spot!

A horse head fountain.

Did I mention it was a beautiful day?

Sunshine and a high of about 25C (77F). Perfect.

People out doing a canal boat trip.

No shortage of tourists willing to pay the €15 ($22 CAD, $16.50 USD) for a half hour boat ride on the canals. 

It's a really pretty city.

The smallest Gothic window in the world.

Another tourist boat.

That is a tall church tower!

Wandering some of the side streets.

Of course Cameron kept on seeing all these signs at restaurants and shops advertising the famous Belgian Waffles, so he wanted one. I kind of wanted one too! So we looked up the place with the best reviews, and found a small little take out spot run by a one woman operation. Celine makes the best waffles in Bruges!

Cameron and Celine with his specially made waffle.

When you make the best waffles in Belgium, they won't be cheap. The basic waffle is €3.50, but you can add all the toppings you want... at an extra €1.50 per topping. Some of the more expensive toppings cost €2 each.

So, by the time Cameron added chocolate sauce and marshmallows it was now a €6.50 ($9.60 CAD, $7.10 USD) waffle!

I decided I didn't need one that badly!

Yum!

I ended up having a couple of bites. Not the toppings I would have chosen, but it was yummy nonetheless.

We went inside this church.

Interesting.

Lots of interesting buildings.

The Belfort in Bruges.

You can pay to climb the 366 stairs in the tower... for €15 ($22 CAD, $16.50 USD). That's a little steep considering we paid £6 ($10.50 CAD, $7.75 USD) just the other day to climb the 311 steps in the Fire Monument in London.

This building in the central plaza has a compass on it.

You can see a golden metal flag on the roof. It’s a weather vane that shows the direction of the wind, and it’s connected to the giant compass’ needle. Being able to see the way from which the wind blew was useful for merchants back when Bruges was one of Europe’s biggest harbors. It let them know whether their delivery sailboats would be delayed due to poor wind conditions. It was installed in 1682.

We went into a Harry Potter wizard shop.

We could easily spend more time in Bruges.

The Blood Church.

Said to have a piece of cloth stained by the blood of Jesus.

The back side of the tower.

This is the same building that they modelled the Lego piece out of.

We tried to tie our drive from Bruges to the other side of Antwerp so that we wouldn't have to deal with traffic, but it didn't work out so well. We paid the €7 to take a toll road around Antwerp, but it was a bit backed up as well.

No worries, we still arrived at our friends Bjorn and Freya around 5:00pm. Regular readers might remember when we met this nice young couple at a campground beside a river in Bosnia in October 2021.

Also, Freya is the one who works at the Natural History Museum in Brussels that we visited last year.

Cameron must have said something funny because Freya is laughing.

Ruth, Kevin, and Cameron showing off his Club Bruges scarf.

Freya, Kevin, and Cameron.

Bjorn is a mechanic and was working late last night on a side job, so he didn't arrive home until after 10:00pm. We played some board games in the evening, and drank a couple of nice Belgian beers!

They have both gone to work this morning and left us on our own at the house. It's actually Bjorn's parents house... they are house sitting for a couple of weeks. Not sure what's on the agenda today, but it might be a relaxing kind of a day!

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