Most of my trips overseas are generally planned fairly way in advance so I was surprised when I decided at the last minute to accept Rita’s invite to do a quick weekend away to Belgium to visit the Christmas Markets. I figured that since I wasn’t really doing much else anyway so might as well spend the weekend away! We decided on a tour package that would include travel/accommodation/tour guide so the weekend started at before the crack of dawn on Saturday morning and would involve a more than seven hour bus/ferry/bus ride via Dover to Brussels, where we would spend a few hours, before getting on the bus for nearly another couple of hours to get to Bruges, where we would spend the evening and most of Sunday before departing Bruges late afternoon for another seven hour plus bus/ferry/bus ride back to Victoria! Fair to say we spent more time traveling than actually in Belgium but hey ho!

Photos, Photos, Photos.

When?	Early Dec 2008
Why Go?	Chocolates (of course!), mussels and frites, beautiful architecture, Christmas Markets
Weather	Wet on Saturday, fine and beautiful on Sunday

The Experience

Brussels

I’ve actually been to Brussels before, way back in 2003, for an afternoon and in all honesty it was more than enough time to spend n the city though having said back then that we didn’t explore much more than the Grand-Place and hunting down the Manneken-Pis statue and his little sister. It wasn’t much different to this visit except we also had the Christmas Markets to explore and Rita had her purse stolen so we also got a tour of the police station! To be fair to Brussels I think it is entitled to at least a weekend to allow you to visit all the museums that you like but also to travel a bit further afar than the area around the Grand-Place and visit such attractions as the Atomium and Mini-Europe. For next time maybe.

So the main purpose of this trip was to visit the Christmas Markets. Our tour guide basically gave us a 10 minute introduction and then left us to our own devices. There were a couple of Christmas markets dotted around the Grant-Place but they were nothing compared to German and Austrian Christmas markets I’ve been to before. The Grand-Place is a beautiful square with many of the buildings plated in gold paint. It felt very Christmasy however with the lovely Christmas decorations dotted around and the Grand-Place even having a special light/visual/sound show:

The Grand-Place and surrounding areas were absolutely chockers with people and with the rain it made moving around pretty difficult. Its no wonder that Rita somehow got her purse snatched! We spent probably half the time in Brussels backtracking to see if she’d dropped or left her purse somewhere and then looking and waiting at the police station (even though we got nowhere because we ran out of time.) I felt so bad for her! We had to run from the police station to catch our bus to Bruges so it was a very brief visit indeed to Brussels!

Bruges

Bruge is known as the “Venice of the North” for its large number of lovely canals, pedestrianised cobbled streets, and marvel at the magnificently preserved medieval buildings.

We arrived in Bruges fairly late in the evening and after checking in to the hostel it was almost 10pm by the time we made it into Bruges city centre. It was kind of strange but other than having some Burger King at Dover at about 9.30 am in the morning through all the excitement with losing Rita’s purse etc. I hadn’t been hungry all day. Quite unusual for me! But I was interesting in looking for something to snack on at least but we had a few things to do first before eating!

Our hostel was about a 15-20 minute walk from the city centre so our tour guide took us in whilst giving us a bit of a spiel on various buildings/cathedrals etc. that we walked by. Interestingly the map at our hostel pointed out various “Places to Kiss” … not that it was particularly relevant for us on this trip!

As we didn’t get around to filing a police report in Brussels we still needed to do one for insurance purposes so Rita and I needed to find the police station in Bruges to do so. Our tour guide was nice enough to bring us to the police station and even sit with us whilst we waited to be seen. Strangely it must have been quite a busy crime night in Bruges because even though we got to the police station at nearly 11pm there was still apparently at least an hour’s wait to be seen! After waiting about 45 minutes we gave up and decided to come back the next day.

By then it was nearing midnight! I wouldn’t say the night life of Bruges is particularly huge but there were a few bars to go into. But our first stop was to the little frites stalls at the base of the Bell Tower in the main square. Apparently leases for the stalls are auctioned off every few years and competition is fierce. The frites there were totally awesome, especially when smothered in special sauce.

Bellies fairly full we then headed to one of the bars which had music pumping so loud we could hear it outside. Walking in I felt like I’d walked into a club for teenagers. I swear the average age of everyone inside was something like 16 and it was crowded. No room to even stand around and drink our cherry beer (delicious by the way …) I got a bit bored of the place afterwards so we left and just ended up walking around the city centre for a while before heading back to the hostel for an appreciated sleep.

Waking up Sunday morning was difficult but we had to get up early to go to the police station (yet again!) This time we weren’t leaving until Rita had filed her police report. The day dawned bright and beautiful and we took a nice leisurely stroll the police station. An hour and a half later we were finally free to explore the sights of Bruge. We started off with a mid-morning snack of waffles and ice-cream from Haagen-Dazs which overlooked the square and the Christmas markets.

It was quite a rich snack so our next stop was the Bell Tower to climb 366 (one for every day of the year 🙂 ) steps to reach the top for sweeping views across Bruges. A nice work out though I don’t imagine we worked off to many of our the calories from our waffles. Heh heh.

After exploring the Christmas markets, snacking on some snails (gee they looked oh so appetising – not!) for me and prawns for Rita, seeing a LOT of chocolate in store and out, sampling chocolate liqueuers, and doing more walking around Bruges it was time for lunch – there was no way I was leaving Belgium without sampling some mussels!

It was clear that I was still decidedly full from our snacking in the morning as even though Rita and I shared a pot of mussels and some stew I must have gone into some sort of food coma trying to finish it all – I was more than ready for bed at that stage! LOL.

But we still had some sight-seeing to do before hoping on the bus back to Calais and this included stops to see Michelangelo’s marble Madonna and Child lies within the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk (Church of Our Lady) and to see the curious blood of Christ in the Basilica of the Holy Blood. The Madonna and Child were okay but I was more interested in the beautiful Church of Our Lady and we didn’t get to see the blood of Christ which was apparently hidden in some back panel.

Finally, I did some last minute shopping for chocolate before Rita and I had to make a run for the bus!

It was a very long journey back to London but it was a nice weekend away. Good food, good company, something a bit different (visits to two police stations for one!), great chocolate – what’s not to love.