Moulesin' & fritesin' in Bruges

A work placement for my program landed me in Brussels for a month this summer, so I tried to take advantage of the temporary homebase by sightseeing around Belgium in my spare time. I'd never even been to Brussels before so it was great getting to know the city.

We took the Eurostar to Brussels on a Friday night, then hopped on a local train Saturday morning to check out Bruges for the day. In typical fashion we did absolutely no research before our daytrip, and with no Belgian cellphones our ability to come up with a plan on the spot was rather limited. We managed to follow the crowd of other tourists leaving the train station and made our way to the tourist information centre with little trouble. If you find yourself with no map, no plan, and no 4G in Bruges, there is a tourist information centre about a 10 minute walk from the train station in the Concert Hall building. It's a good starting point for the most touristy part of the city anyway so it's definitely worth stopping by if you are unprepared and disorganized like us :)

They know how to do flower boxes in Bruges.

Once we got ourselves orientated, we set off on our own little walking tour. Bruges is laced with pretty little canals - and they don't smell nearly as bad as Venice's! and we were there on a crazy hot day! We weaved our way through the little streets - and tourists taking pictures with their iPads - and found a cafe just off one of the main streets to get some lunch. The restaurant we found was not noteworthy - especially as it did not have mussels on the menu! Tragedy!

The restaurant I WANTED to eat at... Pat likes to decide we're on a strict budget at the most annoying times.

After a few snacks and some Belgian brews we hopped on one of the twenty or so boats that take tourists around the canals. We probably waited in line for almost 45 minutes so I would not recommend deciding to do the boat tour at 2 pm on a Saturday in July! For 8 euros each though it was definitely worth it, and is only 30 minutes so you get a nice perspective of the city without spending too much time sitting around.

I got grossed out when spray from the boat landed on me so I can't even imagine swimming in the canals, but this was a cool public swimming spot!

Belgium seems to have a strange fascination with little statues of people doing weird shit.

After the boat tour we did a nice big loop of the city, starting at the "Lake of Love" - I think called Minnewater - and then walking east up the the outskirts of the main tourist area and cutting in to finish at the Grote Markt or Grand Place, and then back down to the train station.

Fear not - I made Pat find us mussels before we could leave!! ah-mazing.

Bruges' Grand Place - not quite as impressive as Brussels' but still smokes anything Canada has ever come up with ;)

Heavy metal concert in the main square in the middle of the day? Super weird combo with the elderly tourists and families wandering around with ice cream cones!!

Bruges clearly has a reputation as a prime tourist destination for a reason. It's very charming, the food and beer are both excellent, and the city is very cute with lots of little streets to meander down and explore.

Fun little alleyways away from the hoards of tourists!

So overall, Bruges lives up to the hype. Would I go there again in peak tourist season? Probably not, but for how many people there were it was still really enjoyable so that's a testament to how much I liked it. I definitely wouldn't advise spending more than one day here though if you're crunched for time.

Coming up next - Blankenberge, BRUSSELS ITSELF lol, Montenegro, Croatia... I'm a bit behind oops.

Au revoir!