Hotel Ter Kase Ostende

... had a blonde that was very good.

We went through the whole menu, bookmarking beers we liked the sound of as we went. Every beer had details next to it of the origin and the flavours and the alcohol content.

We both decided on a fruit beer, thinking that was a pretty safe bet. Witek chose one with all different types of berries in it, and I chose one that was described as ‘unique’ with real strawberries. Witek’s was very nice, but one sip of mine told ...

... and Child by Leonardo Da Vinci is housed – the “pointy church” from the movie. I may get lost again. In this town, that’s not so bad.

Off the wall observations: It seems that the Italians make the American look like seasoned, sophisticated tourists. They’re everywhere, they’re loud, and you definitely don’t want them in line in front of you. They’ll take a half hour arguing with ...

... into a chocolate store and get free samples during a chocolate-making presentation. By this point, I had introduced everyone in our group to the VanAcker family-style vacation, so we had walked basically over the entire area of Bruges and seen everything our Bible/Europe on a Budget had listed. For dinner, we were planning to eat at a place called the Hobbit (right next door to Tolkein – this place is great for nerds), but after walking around ...

... beers on tap and then went yet again, to more chocolate shops. It seemed that there was one about every twenty feet or so and after not long I had had enough. So then we went to the Havle Mann Brewery and had a few of the famous Belgian beers. All in all, it was a great day and we had seen so much, and ate so much chocolate, but only seen a small portion of the city. We are determined to go back again and continue exploring.


Brugge, West Flanders, Belgium christineandal

... a carillon concert which happens every Sunday at 2pm and they play Greensleeves, Danny Boy and a Bach symphony. When we reached the top of the tower, Katelyn said, I hope the bells don't ring and in the next second they did, very loudly.

We packed our bags as we were leaving for Amsterdam the next day. I loved Bruges but because Greg hadn’t felt well, we hadn’t done anything outside of Bruges and it had been pretty relaxing compared to London.

... what was a very touristy shopping street and again had a quick look in the chocolate shops which were all starting to look the same or had the same products. One looked a bit different, with modern packaging and small quantities of chocolates, but again, no flavours were labelled! The guy said that the flavours were traditional flavours with the exception of chilli.

Greg was feeling a bit better when we got home.

... though they have a price per gram and the shopkeeper (she was scary!) insisted that after we had chosen a few that we really needed to taste what she recommended. She also insisted that these chocolates were not for eating, but enjoying. Many of the flavours were similar to what I make but some were much stronger flavours and everyone agreed that they were too strong. We had chosen some different ones like basil, coriander, olive and some other different flavours (yuck,yuck,yuck!).

... Killian, me and Jee, while the family had left early morning to go to the fish market. I was too late and too lazy to go to such early activity so instead we had coffee on the beachside while Killian was running his bike on the bike park. They've understood it all there, because the bike park is surrounded by cafe and restaurant. So the parents are ...

... closed yesterday. Both the Town Hall and the Basilica of the Holy Blood were nothing terribly exciting for me, but I could see the Basilica being a pretty important pilgrimage for many, because it holds a supposed vial of Christ's blood. The Dumon chocolate shop - a bit of a pilgrimage for me because it supposedly has incredible chocolate ganache and chocophiles flock there for it. It was good, but no better than the other ...

... adventures that came our way. In Brussels, accompanied by the great Robin S. Wiviott we saw La Grande Place, please see pretty photo and had delicious mussels. The next day I showed Bubbi Leuven where we hit up the same spots as Robin and I did. Next was Beautiful Brugge, where we took a boat trip along the canal, saw a Rodin exhibit and visited a chocolate museum which was both interesting and yummy, due to a free sample. Next was Ghent which began with a ...