Hotel Lido 2000 Ostende

... more like 2500. My favourite beers were de Garre (local speciality sold exclusively at the pub of the same name - Dark flavourful and quite strong), Leffe, Westmalle Trappist, Bruges zot and bok. Whitney even gave in and sipped a few of my beers until we found one she liked!! It was a Raspberry fruity beer that was quite sweet.<br>Other than beer, we had to indulge in the other Belgian standards: Waffles, chocolate ...

... you can find out all you needed and wanted to know about the history of the french fry and how to properly execute the cooking of said fry. I think i took more pictures of this than of anything else in Brugge.<br><br>Fun fact: We Americans call it a French Fry because Belgian soldiers showed American soldiers how to make them in the war and they were speaking French, and it just stuck.<br><br>There is a church that I visited ...

... around a bit more and got lunch at a cheap Italian restaurant. We were cold and freezing and cold and sick of sightseeing, so we went back to the hostel for an afternoon nap &#8211; we really miss siestas! Our evening was pretty quiet too &#8211; Bruges isn&#8217;t exactly a party capital.<br><br>Day trip to Brussels! We caught the train to Brussels, and after about 1 hour we had walked around the touristy bit, seen the main square and the statue of the little boy ...

... black and had decided to make himself comfortable on our bed before Kevin threw him out the door. Apparently they had people filming in the B&amp;B earlier that day and perhaps a door had been left open, allowing Wup to venture into rooms he is not normally allowed!<br><br>We pretty much dropped our stuff and went straight out to find the nearest supermarket and to see the town. Kevin had told us that it would shut at about 6pm so we had to hurry in there as it was already 5:30pm ...

... 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&#8217;s a canal ring as well as a canal network within the ring. Everywhere you turned there was another photo opportunity and I won&#8217;t bore ...

... waffles really were great), and went to De Halve Mann, the only brewery still working in Bruges. After a tour of the brewery, which led me to reminisce about me being Dad&#8217;s underage basement-beer-brewing apprentice, we were entitled to a free sample of the blond beer brewed on-site.<br><br>After our tasty beverage, we continued our tour of Bruges. There are a ridiculous amount of lace and chocolate shops around, and we were lucky enough to ...

... run all through the city. It was gorgeous. After that we stopped in a church really fast to see Michelangelo's Madonna and Child then we went to the local brewery to take a tour and get a free beer, walked around the city then went to pick up Josh.<br><br>If anyone is ever in Bruges there is this little restaurant that has all you can eat ribs for pretty cheap and right across the ...

From Elegant Paris to Bitter Beer Belgium and Bruges Bruges is history frozen in time. The inlet to Bruges' harbor was silted over, which left its industries to slowly die, but kept its buildings and culture free from modernizing. It is best described as a charming place. We were excited to leave the bustling inner city and refined metro system of Paris to enter a ...

... the canals. The thing about Amsterdam was, once you saw one canal, you pretty much knew what they all looked like. Most of the buildings there are all the same style -- about 4 floors and "flat" on top. Not so in Brugge. Here, every single building has its own unique look, and all of the buildings are gabled, that is they have triangular sections rising up above where the main building roof is. This plus the variety of colors really gives every street ...

Ok, so this was the last stop before we went back home to London. Brugge is the one of the most visited cities in Europe, by Europeans. http://www.brugge.be/internet/en/index. htm Brugge was the big trading city in the area about 800 years ago. When the Emperor of the time was imprisoned there - but then later was released, he came back and gave all the trading rights to Antwerp ...