We head out in search of dinner. We generally don’t like to eat in the city center areas as they tend to be more expensive and not as good as some restaurants a few streets back.

Earlier in the day we saw Belgian waffles on a stick, dipped in chocolate and mentioned that we needed to try those before we leave Belgium. Since tonight is our last night in Brugge we headed to that shop to see what time it closed. 10PM!! Excellent.

 

We didn’t want to go too far from the waffle shop, so we decided to choose a restaurant near to the square but not in the really high rent district. They offered Flemish Stew which we have seen on a few menus but not tried yet. We ordered that and a chicken breast dish that came with baked potato AND fries ??? We shared them both. The chicken was OK but the Flemish Stew was amazing.

We then headed back to the waffle shop that now has a lineup! Not too long though. We get our waffles on a stick, one dipped in dark chocolate and the other in chocolate caramel. Yum yum.

 

We found some spots to take some night lit photos.

Another great breakfast provided by Doreen.

We decide that today we will do a canal boat tour and see what the Bruges Historium is all about.  The Historium takes you back in time to medieval Bruges (15th century).  The attraction is housed in what was called the “Waterhuis” where ships unloaded their cargo back in the day.

 

 

There is a terrace on the third floor where we can look out over the market square.

 

 

 

After the Historium we wander out of the Market Square to find the Canal Boat docks.  For 8 Euros each ($12 CAD) we will have a 30 minute tour of the canals.

 

The guide takes a poll of the languages on board and accommodates them all!

 

We see these interesting fellows along the way.

 

 

Our guide reminds us near the end that it is a nice gesture to slip the guide a little something something on the way off the boat 🙂  (very subtle)

 

 

I take this opportunity to take Stu’s photo below the golden fish!!

 

 

 

We wandered a bit out of the center of town as we are noticing that it is much busier than yesterday.  We find a nice out of the way spot and stop for a beer.  We meet a really nice young couple.  He is French and she is German.  They live in Paris and are on vacation in the north of France and coming to Bruges for the day.

 

 

Notice the alcohol content of this beer.  No girly beer for us 🙂

 

 

 

 

Wandering through the streets we come across this sign.

 

 

Here is the smaller one enlarged.  haha!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a park surrounding Bruges that has some windmills.  This one has a museum in the top section.

 

 

 

I climbed up to the first floor.  That is Stu down below recording my accomplishments!  More STEEP STEPS 🙂

 

 

 

 

Found this Citroën Duex Cheveaux on the street and just needed to capture it.

 

 

 

The Citroën 2CV (French: “deux chevaux” i.e. “deux chevaux-vapeur” (lit. “two steam horses”), “two tax horsepower“) is a front-engine, front wheel drive, air-cooled economy car introduced at the 1948 Paris Mondial de l’Automobile and manufactured byCitroën for model years 1948–1990.

We are on the move tomorrow.  We don’t know at the moment where we will end up.  Surprises for all tomorrow 🙂

Our hostess Doreen prepared a beautiful breakfast for us.  Cheeses, baked goods, coffee, yogurt, kiwi and fresh squeezed OJ.  Can’t beat fresh squeezed OJ  😉

After breakfast she takes us across the street where she has a space where her bikes are stored.  Gives us the lowdown on the ins and outs of the space and a map with bicycle trails on it.  We are going walking first and will take the bikes out later.

We head into the main square of Bruges.  It is Monday and all of the museums are closed today.  There are day tours from Amsterdam and probably other places, so I suspect that it will be a quieter day in town for those tours.

There is a Geocache right in the square.  The GPS has us close.  We see another woman wandering and looking around like us 🙂  She asks if we are geocaching and we confirm we are.  She is from Paris and we join forces.  We chat and simultaneously spot the cache!  It is soooo obvious now!  The bike racked with many others is painted in the geocache colours and has a geocache sticker on the bar.  It is a two parter.  The bike has 2 panniers, one marked A and one B.  They are both locked with combination locks.  The code for A is in the cache hint and the code for B is a puzzle.  There are sheets inside pannier A that show 6 images of things possibly in the square.

The Parisian lady and I are working on the puzzle when a family from Belgium join in.  Eventually the 6 of us solve the puzzle.  Very fun.  I was the only Anglo.  The family and the Parisian lady had French in common.  I tried to keep up 🙂

 

We take bikes along with the map of cycling paths and off we go to a little village call Damme.  The photo to the right is where we are waiting for the large boat to the left to go through the lock.  A bit larger lock than along the Rideau canal.

 

We arrive in Damme and interestingly enough we need a beer.
This beer is called Brugse Zot.

Where does the name Brugse Zot come from?

For many centuries, the people of Bruges have been known to their Flemish neighbors, as “Bruges Fools”.

 

 

We are finding Bruge much more to our pace.  Slower, quieter, CALMER than the weekend in Amsterdam.  In Amsterdam you are constantly on the lookout for speeding cyclist or scooterists.

Strolling around Bruges we stop for a beer and washroom at a place along the canal.  Washroom finished we wait for 15 minutes for the waiter to take our order.  He is in no hurry and a toddler at the next table is not a happy camper.  We waited, we move on.  A couple corners later we see a place down the street in front of a church.  It looks interesting.  The actual restaurant is across the street from the church.  It doesn’t have room for a patio, so probably made a deal with the church to use its front yard.  A couple great appies.

 These are bonus shots from the Stu Master