Hotel Burlington Ostende

... my first propeller plane flight.

We then made our way to the train station to get our plane to Brugge and we were on our way! The train took us through the inner suburbs of Brussels and since this was our first taste of Belgium I was looking out of the window at our surroundings.

One particular sight caught my eye, I was looking out the window and I saw a scantily clad girl leaning against a bench through one of the windows of a building we passed! I did a ...

... places. So went to a museum, saw a palace where the king and queen never lived, got lost a little trying to get back and went looking for something to eat. Since I blew the wad on breakfast I thought I’d eat cheap so I went to Quick, the Euro equivalent of McDonalds. Got a “Big Bacon”(not that big), a coke, some Cheesy Balls and a coffee for less than 10 Euro. Then headed back to the hotel and crashed so I could get a ...

... ice cream combination was ridiculously delicious. After that, we continued to the main plaza (where the climax of In Bruges occurred, for those interested – it was crazy to be where it was filmed!). There, we walked around the bell tower, the Medieval Belfort, and admired all the fantastic architecture, including the beer wall that displayed every beer brewed in Belgium – a landmark in wall construction, I’m sure. We skipped lunch ...

... us checked in and proceeded to show us the entire house and all the paintings done by her daughter and late husband. It was very personal and more than made up for the communal toilets shared by the three guest rooms. After settling in, we took a walk to find a restaurant. We found a very nice place that did traditional French fondue, and we had our first taste of true Trappist (brewed by monks) Belgian beer. It was all delightful.
Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium christineandal

... 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 ...

... question how fresh the chocolate could possibly be. Some of the displays did look a bit sad and to my amazement, lots of bubbles. I won’t go into detail here about them, but I visited what my lecturer said were the top 5 shops and bought some to taste. I also asked the lady at the hotel who was her favourite chocolatier and I must say Dumon who she said, were up there in the top five. The only thing was ...

... which houses what is said to be a sample of Jesus' blood. We decided to hit the chocolate museum, Choco-Story which was very informative. Greg didn’t make it past the first room because it was stuffy, but sat down in the demo room where he said he learnt a lot. Of course I was very interested in everything as it gave a great history of chocolate from the Mayans to present day in Europe. The demonstration was of making a chocolate with a praline filling which we got to sample ...

... the whole of the city; we are told. Yes, we did not walk up the stairs as the activities of the day caused the belfry tower to not have the steps open. This tower was originally used for lookouts to keep guard over the city and to ring the bells in case of emergencies. The town square was alive with teenagers on a holiday from school. With a large square full of teenagers, we felt the excitement of the crowds and heard the noise of hundreds teenagers being teenagers. So ...

... by accident actually) on the way from Amsterdam to Brugge is what I call "train hopping". With a Eurail pass, you can just hop off one train at any station you want and hop on the next train. So if you end up on a ****** or packed train, you can just do a "train hop" and the next train that comes along might be much nicer and virtually empty. Of course, it could always backfire on you and you end up on an even lousier/more full train. I did it ...

... into jail cos the look on my face wasn't innocent enough, plus I'd probably have failed the lie detector test if I had tried to explain that I had spotted Claudia Schiffer and badly wanted her autograph. Anyhow, upon arrival, I found my way through the old cobble streets and around the the meandering canals towards the Belfry at Mark't Square. Towering over the city (which wasn't a major feat considering most of the buildings were two storeys ...