Pick'S Hotel Ostende

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... the best way to learn about the beer produced in all of the neighboring provinces. The staff was so helpful when looking through the twenty page menu, they have seriously tried all 200 beers. The Belgian beer is also very strong, so after a couple of drink we decided it was time to try some of the local food.
There are two french fry carts sitting in the town square, the competition is steep between ...

... 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 ...

... by the Cloth hall. A building completely destroyed and burnt to the ground by the Germans but was rebuilt later on and converted into the Flanders Field Museum. We decided to visit the museum and it was defiantly worth it. First of all, Belgium really encourages young people to visit their museums so everyone under 26 years old gets in for 1euro. That's enough incentive for me although we would have gone to this particular museum anyway ...

... 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 ...

... so our expectations are high. At the same time we are a little apprehensive. I had booked our rooms in Gouda ahead of time, and that had worked out well. Not so well for Brugge. There was a "mix-up" I wasn't too happy about. I found a fantastic old house to rent from Exquisite Homes, requested information and was offered the place if I responded within 24 hours. I responded to them within 6 hours and awaited ...

... war paraphernalia including rifles with the bullets still in the chamber (indicating they were left over from a casualty). We went to the largest British War Cemetary at Tyne Cot. It contains nearly 12,000 graves, of which 85% were never identified and the headstone just reads "A Soldier of the Great War". It was unreal walking through the cemetery, realizing that an entire generation was wiped out by the fighting. Probably the greatest tragedy ...

Our first stop was in the charming city of Brugges(pop 200,000). The city is Belgium's most visited. We spent the day strolling around the streets with pit stops for Belgian chocolate and beer. The hostel we stayed at was in good clean condition and we met some fellow travellers who suggested this site. We both thought the city was a great starting point.