More of Bruges

Brugge at night...

It's very quiet at night. The streets are more or less deserted, and it doesn't really seem like too many people actually live in the city center. It didn't feel unsafe at all- the worst we saw the whole trip was dog poo on the sidewalk, and other than that it was a squeaky clean place.

Amusingly, at 4am I got woken up by a loud, drunk American who was outside my window asking the world where is hotel was. It's easy to get lost in Brugges. If you like beer, it's also really easy to get drunk.

Bruges was important port city for ages. Here, there was a huge cloth and textiles industry. They still make really gorgeous lace and needlework in the traditional way.

Some of the interiors were incredible. While the churches aren't as flashy and huge as those in France, they made up for it in the detail and liberal application of color.

There was also fantastic food to be had. Aside from wonderful mussels and perfectly cooked frites, they had some very good restaurants to choose from. Lots of very fresh seafood and french-inspired cooking.

Brouwerij

In the spirt of the place, despite my palatial resistance, I did end up seeing, touring, tasting at a few of the classic breweries in Belgium.

Most of them have a history going back hundreds of years. Monks seem to be the #1 instigators as far as the brew industry is concerned. Based on marketing, all of Belgium was populated with jolly drunk monks at one point. Or so I am led to believe.

Inevitably, the back of the rental car became stacked with cases of suds. It sounded like Marly's ghost was accompanying us for the ride. Except instead of chains, Marly was on a bender and clinking bottles instead.

Apparently, getting a few cases of this Westlederen stuff is a really big deal for beer geeks. Getting any at all involves having your license plate taken down and a monk limiting the amount of cases you can haul away, and you can only get this particular beer at the monastery. People line up for hours to take some away.

Brugge

Hi there!

I've been traveling a bit and just been kind of scattered in general, hence the inability to sit down and collect my thoughts for more than a minute or two. Ah, life.

We did go on a what amounted to a beer-buying trip to Belgium lately.

I do not like to drink beer. I dislike the stuff and prefer the grape and the distilled versions of grains. I am easily persuaded to go on road trip adventures though and I am sympathetic to the cause- good beer is hard to find in Paris and people go to great lengths to acuire the good stuff. A few hours north of Paris, you hit the Belgium border and our buying spree begins. The beer is cheaper than bottled water here.

Belgium also seems to get the brunt of the gusty driving rains from the North Sea. Paris seemed downright balmy compared to it.

We centered ourselves in Brugges, a medieval city filled with gorgeous old streets and canals.

It's a breathtakingly beautiful city. Its labyrinth of cobblestone streets were easy to get completely lost trying to navigate, but the pleasant surprises that come with getting completely lost was exactly what I wanted.

The 13th century bell tower dominates the main square of the city.

Sometimes these rainy days surprise you with a brief bright hit of sunlight, leaving the world saturated with color.

Belgian chocolate is really different from French chocolate- it's sweeter and creamier- and it's everywhere.

But it's pretty obvious from the fact that every cafe and bar had a beer menu the thickness of the NYC phone book, this was a serious beer town.