Sunparks Oostduinkerke

... 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 ...

After a bit of a hard night, we were all up at about 9am to check out of our hotel and go for a quick wander around Brugge, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Often described as the 'Venice of the North', there are quite a few canals in Brugge, but as we discovered, there's even more chocolate shops - they're everywhere!
We walked down a stretch of road, only about 1km long, and saw about 7-8 chocolate shops, including ...

... 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 ...

... went to as well (hey, it was raining the whole time). This was considerably better than the fry museum (although not as funny) and we got a demonstration on how they make the famous Belgian Prailines.
Other than that, our 3 days in Brugge were filled with more choclate, beer, and fries (and one waffle) and admiring what the cute little town has to offer. Now we're off to Amsterdam... wish us luck!

... the market and the shops and then went on a boat ride which was fantastic, after which we went to a tea-room which claimed to have the best hot chocolate in town, and it was really good! It was incredibly sickly though and gave both Erin and I a headache for the ride home!

Altogether a really fun day out in Bruges, truffles bought, Belgian food eaten and Belgian alcohol drunk, and Belgian chocolate drunk! This is another place where we will definitely be returning!!

... Many said it was difficult to start fighting again. Others used the lull to their advantage and attacked the unsuspecting soldiers. The exhibit tried to explain the horrors of No Mans Land, where the mud was so thick and deep if you went of the trails you could sink and never be seen again. It’s amazing to think all the fields and towns that now exist here were once a battlefield. They also discussed how the first gas attacks ...

... started forming in the 12th century and although they devoted themselves to God and the Catholic Church they were not nuns and were able to marry and keep their property. They eventually changed their beliefs and became more of mystics and were eventually thought to be heretics and were condemned by the church. They have since greatly declined in numbers and the Beguinage in Brugge is no longer functional. It is beautiful though ...

... with a town square, much like Brussels, with old buildings. There are cafes and little shops around that are nice to browse through. The canal system runs through the town and they have little boats that you can pay to go out on the canals. Unlike Venice, there are no gondolas. We walked around the town ...

... up but he wasn't working so I wandered Compton Street again. London on a Friday night is much like New Orleans, far more so than I ever expected. However, it is N.O. on a New York scale: Tens of thousands of people out carrying on as if their lives depended upon having too much of everything right now. The crowds were hugely varied and mixed, again more NY than NO- the theatre crowd with right toffs crammed into barricades at street crossings with screaming teens, Japanese ...

Caught the train out of Brussels in the morning and into Bruges, a very nice medieval town. I found a nice central hotel. I went and sat in the market-square and had lunch before heading out to see some of the canals, a windmill and the Cross Gate. Had my first real solid food since having my ...