Thursday -- Emily Nelson came over at 3:00. We hugged the kids, packed the car and were on our way. We got to the Chuggs house, ate dinner with them and then got into Jared’s car. It was so fun to be driving in one car. 4 adults – no kids. We talked for a couple hours until we arrived in Brussels. Chris had booked our hotel. Pillows. It was a fairly new hotel… and very modern and really nice. Big comfortable bed, crown molding, awesome bathrooms. The hotel sat right in a big square and our room had a great view of the other lit buildings surrounding the large round about and fountain. Jared and Geneva came into our room and we talked and laughed for a couple hours and checked out the travel book to make a plan for the next day.
View from our hotel window…
It felt so good to sleep in. Chris, driving to seminary these days, and me up just a half hour later seem to not be getting as much sleep as we need. I’m just exhausted these days. Sleeping till 8:00 felt so good. We met downstairs at 9:00 for a great breakfast in the hotel lobby. We sat there chatting about jobs out of the military and staying in the military which seemed to be a theme throughout the entire trip. Eventually, but without concern of time, we got up, packed up, checked out and wandered down to the Grand Place… Brussels main square. Big fancy buildings in every direction with some fun building facades on all the tops.
Belgium is known for it’s chocolate and that was evident in how many chocolatiers there were lining the square and trickling into the side streets. We picked one of each of several different kinds to sample as a mid morning snack. Our first sampling of Belgium chocolate and it was a success.
We spent a little while wandering the nearby streets – mostly scouting out a place to try Belgium’s other great gift to the world… waffles. Rick Steves suggested a place and we went straight to it… Hot fresh waffles topped with whip cream, white chocolate, dark Belgium chocoate and strawberries. Oh. My. Goodness. When he handed us our ‘lunch’ he suggested we head upstairs to sit down. He knew very well that we wouldn’t be able to eat those things standing up on the go. Even sitting down we made a creamy chocolately mess of ourselves -- but oh, what a treat. We decided we both needed to up our waffle game. Those Belgians sure know how to do it. With one final thing to see in Brussels we continued down the street. The Statue of the Peeing boy. I’m not sure why it was a ‘Brussels must-do’ but we had already seen a hundred copies of the Peeing boy statue (one in every store front ) so figured we had to see the real thing. Small and eternally peeing… this small statue seems to be the theme of the entire town. Good grief.
We were in the car by 1:00 driving the hour and fifteen minutes to Bruges or Brugge – depending on what language you’d like to use. We pulled into the city and were immediately enchanted. We had heard that Brugge was great but it exceeded our expectations – maybe that’s just because we did so little research before we showed up.
Our hotel was the Hotel Navarra. It used to be the Grand Hotel back in the day. It was nice and in a good location. By 3:00 we were off exploring the town. On a day forecast with constant rain the only time it rained was while we were driving between the two cities. Once we were waking around Brugge it was windy but beautiful. We headed to the main Square. Every street was beautiful.
Brugge’s main square…
We climbed the tower and looked down at the square below. The top had lots of bells with a huge mechanism which ‘played the bells’ pulling the right lever to the right bell for a cool song on the hour and simple little tunes every 15 minutes. Really interesting. The view from the top was beautiful.
Next we ventured out to find the DAMON chocolateire – recommended by friends and highlighted in the Rick Steves book. The shop itself was just charming. We climbed down into the store and stared at the piles and piles of chocolates before us. The happy suspendered boy in front of us suggested a mix box to try a little of everything. Sensing that I was indeed a little pickier than that – he offered to tell us what every chocolate filling was and then we would say yes or no to that chocolate in our box. It was very kind of him and we picked the perfect box of caramel, raspberry, and mint chocolates leaving out all of the orange rum and coffee flavored. Talking to Chris I wondered if we should get some for the kids or if we would be back. The girl working there overheard me and said, “Oh, you’ll come back. It may be tomorrow, it may be next year… but everyone always comes back.” After tasting the chocolates outside I think she knows exactly what she’s talking about.
We spend the next couple hours walking around streets jetting off from the square. I told Geneva that it was definiately was a couple’s trip. A couple of husbands walking fast up ahead ‘talking shop’ and a couple of wives behind, taking pictures and sharing similarities of busy motherhood. We would inevitably get distracted checking out store fronts , wandering down an alley for a picture and just chatting and would find our husbands sitting on a bench waiting for us. They are such good husbands. We teased that we were sure glad they came along on our ‘girls trip’ so they could be our tour guides and pay for everything. It was just perfect following them around. We had some time before our reservations for dinner so we decided to share a horse and buggy ride through the city... which was delightful.
We ate at a Rick Steves recommended restaurant, and then headed back to our hotel to play Hand and Foot in the lobby. A great day. These pictures were in the lobby. It used to be the Grand Hotel. I love a building with history. : )
Saturday we wandered more streets, visited the Lady’s Church and then took a boat tour through the city’s canal.
[The Madonna and Child (1504-5) by Michelangelo Buonarotti is carved in Carrara marble. Originally is was intended for an altar in the Cathedral of Sienna but the Mouscron family of Bruges bought it and give it to Our Lady’s Church. It is one of the few works by Michelangelo outside Italy.]
We ended out Belgium trip with Speculoos Cookies and more Belgium Waffles. Delicious!!!
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