May 5, 2020

Day trip to Bruges, Belgium

I can’t believe this trip was 2 years ago. Nothing like procrastinating writing posts! We should have been in Italy this summer, but…we all know how that turned out. To satisfy the travel bug I’ve had fun looking through pictures and reliving these trips. If you missed the earlier posts, I’ve shared our time in Paris and Brussels and Kelly talks about her Ireland adventures here.

We spent two nights in the Belgium capital of Brussels, but we didn’t really have much on our to do list there. Instead we decided to take the train for a day trip to Bruges! Have I mentioned how much I love train travel? It is just so EASY! Less than an hour away we were transported to this fairy tale city.

Bruges is one of the most well preserved medieval towns in Europe. It’s entire historic center is a UNESCO world heritage site. With swans swimming through picturesque canals, beautiful architecture and horse drawn carriages on cobblestone streets, the town looks like a postcard.

The day started off a bit rough, with our credit card not working at the train station. We had heard of this happening, something about the chips in US cards not working in the readers, but luckily there was a manned booth and we were able to purchase our train tickets with cash. By the time we arrived in Bruges the rain was really coming down. We had umbrellas, but it was a bit of a walk from the train station into the city and despite the temperature in the mid 40’s it was FREEZING. Luckily the rain passed fairly quickly and the sun came out, making our day much more enjoyable.

The city is small and very easily walkable. We started out in the main square, the Markt, and marveled at all the colored buildings with their stepped gable facades. On the opposite side of the square is the belfry. If it looks like it is leaning…that’s because it is! It leans over 2 feet to the East to be exact. The large town hall (Provinciall Hoff) dominates the rest of the square with it’s dark gothic architecture and the many benches around are the perfect place to people watch.

Bruges is a wonderful city to just wander. It is small enough you really don’t need to worry about getting lost, so you’re free to roam and see where you end up. We crossed yet another stone bridge, admiring the swans swimming in the canal, and suddenly realized we had passed through a gate into what seemed like a different time. We were now within the Begijnhof, a beguinage (similar to a convent) where St Benedictine nuns still live. The city wasn’t necessarily loud the day we visited, but once you’re in the convent garden it was so incredibly quiet and peaceful. Daffodils were beginning to bloom beneath the trees and it was a welcome break to just breathe and enjoy the silence. There was a museum on the grounds if you wanted to learn more about the history of the place and a small old church. If you time it right, you might even hear the nuns reciting prayers.

Over the past few decades, Bruges has become a popular destination and has a reputation of being a bit of a tourist trap. Maybe it was because we visited in the off season or maybe because we visited in the middle of the week, crowds were no problem for us. That being said the food was nothing special and prices were higher than we experienced in Brussels. I would recommend sticking with snacks and beers around the city as opposed to a sit down meal.

We stopped at Chez Vincent for some appetizers and to warm up from the rain. You chose your meats from the window display and they fry it up and serve with more delicious Belgian fries. We chose a frikandel curry sausage (a popular Belgian sausage), pork on a stick and cheese croquettes. We found a table upstairs along the large windows and enjoyed our snacks with a view of the church and courtyard down below.

Once the sun came out I knew it was time to stop at Gelateria Da Vinci. Now I realize gelato is not what you would first expect to find in Belgium, but I had my eye on Da Vinci since I heard of their speculoos gelato (speculoos is the flavor of Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter, if you didn’t know). They also had tiramisu gelato, which was always Matt’s choice at our local ice cream shop until they recently got rid of it, so we were both in gelato heaven! They had plenty of traditional gelato flavors but more unique ones such as kinder (the dutch candy), champagne and snickers.

We finished our day off with a beer from De Halve Maan Brewing (which translates to the half moon). The coolest part of this brewery? It transports the finished product to its bottling plant 2 miles away…underground. Yep, there is a beer pipeline running underneath the cobblestone streets of Bruges! The brewery gained so much popularity it was a logistical nightmare trying to get enough delivery trucks through the tiny city streets. Of course they didn’t want to move the brewery out of the city center, where it has been for over 100 years, so the pipeline was born.

If you find the time, I would highly recommend adding a day in Bruges to your travels! Two days is probably more than enough time, though if you were looking for a place to relax and recuperate midway through your trip this could be a good spot. It was so nice to get out of the big cities for a day.