La Roche-sur-Yon

La Roche-sur-Yon

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Un beau jour à Bruges

On Friday, I set aside the day for a solo mini-adventure.  I researched Antwerp, Bruges, Gent, and Brussels before deciding to head all the way across the country (which is only a two-hour train ride) to Bruges.

Bruges is a small, picturesque town - a good place to relax, wander, and enjoy the ambiance.  Canals and forty-some bridges circle the city centre.  Near the train station, there's a beautiful monastery, park, and lake complete with a plethora of ducks and more swans than I've ever seen in one place.  The square in the city centre is enclosed by a handful of huge, elegant buildings - a museum, the Stadhuis, and many cafés and restaurants.


The greater part of the day was spent wandering the cobblestone streets, admiring, and people-watching.  The only drawback to Bruges is that it's buzzing with clones upon clones of the stereotypical tourist, complete with fanny pack, camera and neckstrap, and always with city map in hand.  If you can get past that, and maybe find some quieter, less-traveled streets, the buildings and shops are wonderful to peruse.  I did take a canal tour just for kicks, although I didn't see much that I hadn't already seen on foot (the only difference was being on a boat with thirty other people and a driver/tour guide who cracked relentless terrible jokes).  It was worth enduring the bad jokes, though, because you get to listen to the tour guides speak five or six languages fluently.  They ask you what language you prefer when you get on the boat, and they rotate through all languages as they give the tour; our boat heard everything in English, Italian, and German.

Another must-see in Bruges is the Église Notre-Dame (Church of Our Lady), which houses la Vierge à l'Enfant (Madonna and Child) sculpture by Michelangelo.  It was made around 1504, and the sculpture is one of the few by Michelangelo that are located outside of Italy.  The church also owns a handful of paintings that are on display, and there's a small but pretty garden area and canal behind the church.


For dinner, I had an amazing dish of carbonnade flamande (beef stew) with applesauce.  My other adventure was visiting a shop called the Chocolate Line, which was featured on a cooking show called the Hairy Bikers.  The Chocolate Line is known for bizarre chocolate flavors, like grass and one that numbs your mouth.  I discovered that these are used mainly for demonstrations, but I did pick up a variety of flavors like apple vinegar, lemongrass, and passion fruit.  We sampled them after dinner the next night in Liège and they were incredibly flavorful; they outshone even Godiva.

On Saturday, my last night in Liège, Mary and Bruce had their neighbors (a Belgian couple, Daniel and Isabelle and their son, who's around Joseph's age) over for dinner.  They were excellent company and we all had a blast; we even tricked Daniel into trying some caca coffee after dinner...which, he admitted in the end, was not bad.  The experience was also a crash course in French for me as everyone spoke very quickly and wittily while I attempted to cling on and follow the conversation.  For five straight hours, it was exhausting, but it was the first step in jogging my memory and forcing me to think in French again, just in time for me to travel south into France.

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