Ter Brugge Bed And Breakfast Jabbeke

... other Churches.

I did have a couple of moments with brief drizzles, but overall I had some beautiful, sunny weather and I enjoyed a few hours of walking around Brugges (while eating a delicious waffle for part of it), before returning on the 25 minute train back to Ghent.

Which is where I am now, and I'll go eat at a friend of Johanna's house for dinner tonight. It is, by the way, definitely ...

Today I said goodbye to rainy, rainy Bruxelles, and took the half hour train (8 euros) to Gent/Ghent, where I met up with my first host ever, Johanna. She was the first couchsurfer to welcome me into her home back in 2007, after I had finished my year in South Korea, in Beijing.

- Before going to Ghent, I actually made a stop in the Musical Instruments Museum in Bruxelles ...

... well I think, travelling over 1400 miles (or over 2300km) and the car ran faultlessly! Overall it was an awesome holiday, we all had heaps of fun and all said we'd like to do it again. The next one is in early May, and is going to be a motorsport themed event, running through France to Monaco, ending at the Monaco Grand Prix. I'd really like to go on this rally, but won't be able to as I'll be on the Topdeck training trip!

... fuel in Dijon, which (at least the parts we saw) didn't look all that great, in contrast to the rest of the country which I thought was great.

Our final stop in France was in Metz, where we grabbed lunch, had a quick walk around the markets and I bought a crepe with strawberry jam (delicious). We had a walk through St Stephens Cathedral - a massive church whose construction started in around 1220 and finished in 1520. It is a very spectacular building, incredibly tall and with ...

... at the end.
We also toured the local De Halv Maans brewery, which offered good views at the top and pretty good beer. And we found the newest idea in take out--fast food pasta! They cook fresh pasta right in front of you, add a sauce, put it in a cup and give you a fork, for 3 Euro. We think it would take off at home.
Oh, we haven't mentioned chocolate yet. Brugge also has a chocolate museum which ...

... went for a wander around the Beguinage and the little streets of the city before stopping for lunch in a restaurant on the main square, which was really nice and served local traditional food which was really great.

We wanted to go up the clock-tower but the queue was far too long and we decided that we could go back another day during the week when there weren't so many tourists!

The Christmas market had just started in Bruges so we spent quite a while wandering ...

... place in this area killing hundreds of people. It was a gruesome and honest look at the horrors of the war. One of the things that shocked me greatly is the difference between WWI and WWII. Air support was a brand new thing and many of the soldiers were untrained and went onto the battlefield without guns and without helmets. In fact Helmets only started being enforced 3 years after the war started. With all this confusion and madness its ...

... has been preserved. After our nice walk through there we walked to the more modern area of the town and discovered a separate square with the most unusual statues in a fountain. It seemed to greatly contrast the medieval feel of the city and was almost shocking. We enjoyed them greatly though and took some pictures with the ducky of course!

After spending some time sitting at the steps in the market square we made our way up ...

... a bike tour of the city. As it is off season there were only five of us on the tour- Fee and I plus a Scottish guy and his two kids. Having a small group was good as we got to cover a fair amount of ground and learn a lot about this area of Belgium. Prior to arriving in Bruges my knowledge of Belgium was limited to the following; Jean Claude van Damme and Kim Clijsters are Belgian. It is a small country wedged between Netherlands and France. They make lots of beer. So there was ...

... our arms and chest were getting a solid workout. Bruges is a charming little city. Often termed "Venice of the North" (at least in tourist pamphlets) it has a small city centre interspersed with canals. To me it looked like a mini Amsterdam sans the prostitutes and drugs. Its medieval streets and winding canals create a relaxed atmosphere and the fact that there are few cars makes it quite peaceful. Almost everyone gets around on bicycles, from little children to ...