Empire Ostende

... number but fortunately at that moment Kevin, one of the owners, turned up.

He was really lovely and showed us in to our room. The house is a big townhouse they had gutted completely then turned into a four room B&B on the upper levels and their home on the lower levels. Our room was lovely, nicely decorated and a good size with a little balcony overlooking the street and the canal. We also met Wup very briefly for the first time. Wup is one of their three cats, he is tiny ...

... came in a pot and the milk was heated as well. So my 16 Euro dinner came to about 37 Euro, or about $55.50. Oh well. Had a good conversation with a bunch of Swedes who were in town on business then made it back to the hotel. Today I got an early start and just walked the streets. There’s a canal ring as well as a canal network within the ring. Everywhere you turned there was another photo opportunity and I won’t bore ...

... more (what else would we do?) we sat down at Bocca, an Italian restaurant that serves pasta in takeout Chinese container lookalikes. I admit, I was skeptical at first, but it was some of the best 5 euros I have ever spent – the homemade sauce was absolutely delicious! We liked it so much that we are planning to write to Europe on a Budget and recommend it. Seriously, it was that good.

To cap off our evening in Bruges, we went and got ...

... the center of town where the government building is alongside the provincial courthouse and the large Belfry tower. Inside part of the tower was a Salvador Dali expo that we went and saw. It was very interesting and gave us a new perspective of Dali. Afterwards, we simply wandered the streets and stopped in a t all the chocolate shops that caught Christine’s eye. Then we went to a small beer garden that had some very good and ...

... leave Brugge. We did redeem ourselves by climbing the Belfry which is a medieval tower which formerly housed a treasury and the municipal archives and served as an observation post for spotting fires and other dangers. It is 83 metres high and there are 366 steps up a narrow space-not for the faint hearted. The tower actually leans 1 metre to the east. Before we climbed, Katelyn had complained about the bells ringing constantly but we realised that that was ...

... We walked to the Church of our Lady which was built in the 13th century and is completely built in brick, in fact, it is the second highest brick building in the world. Its other claim to fame is that it contains a statue of Madonna and child by Michelangelo. In 1506 it was given to the church by a Brugge merchant. It is the only work by Michelangelo that was exported during his lifetime.

We then strolled ...

... had skulls decorating it. A couple of the women finally went back to work and it is amazing how complicated the patterns were. Tara was a bit disappointed though, but it did make her more aware of how much work goes into the hand- made lace.

Greg was fading a bit so we went home and had take-away pasta that night and an early night. Tara talked me into going to one of the chocolate shops to buy some chocolates. Apparently, they don’t sell anything less than 250g ...

... our journey back to the train station in earnest. The station was an easy walk with our new found energy and we began to meet more and more people that we knew from the ship. Back to track 8b and a short wait was all that was needed for us to board the train for the ride back to Blankenberg where the ship's shuttle bus was waiting to return us to the White Lady. It was a great day that allowed us to enjoy this time capsule of the medieval ages thru the Renaissance. Bruges ...

... trip, after here heading to Ireland, then France, Switzerland and Italy. Who knows, I might run into them again in one of the latter 3 countries (saving Ireland for a future trip). Today, I took a guided tour of the battlefields of World War I, titled "Fields of Flanders". It was a very well done tour that lasted from 9:15 AM to 5:00 PM. We drove all around the Ypres Salient, the area where the British, French, Belgians, and Canadians (and eventually ...

... on Ascension Day, a procession takes place along the city's streets, with a knight carrying the relic. A two minute walk away from Burg Square takes you to the Huidenvettersplein. There was everything to love about this small quarter of historic homes, except if you were an English student asked to spell it's name. Many of the homes have been turned into restaurants with al fresco dining, and the warm European summer made it a wonderful place to ...