Day 13: Brugge, Belgium

Brugge was by far my favorite city thus far. The city of 120,000 inhabitants is over 1,200 years old. We started out the day with a three hour walking tour. Along the way we walked through a beautiful courtyard that was part of the town’s monastery. We then walked over a bridge alongside a small park where there were many swans and ducks meandering about.
“Chocolate Street” was our next destination. This street was filled with chocolate, lace, and souvenir shops. Horse-drawn carriages, bicycles, and canal boats were the primary methods of transportation - very few cars, which was very refreshing. The street dead ended into the Church of Our Lady - the tallest building in Belgium for the better part of the country’s existence.
From there we made our way to the Market Square via a few back alleys where there were some really cool shops. We made our way back around and ended the walking tour at a restaurant, where we had lunch. Local beef stew, braised beef in a rich Belgian beer sauce, and Belgian waffles for dessert.
After lunch we had a couple hours of free time, so Amber and I headed back to “Chocolate Street” and loaded up our backpack with 86 euro worth of Belgian chocolate. We then took a thirty minute canal cruise through the city, which was great. Amber got some great shots of the architecture along the way.
Then, we made our way to a beer shop, where I bought five bottles of local micro brews. The shop keeper was rather uninformative, but I’ve had a couple of the beers and I was very happy with my selections thus far. We had twenty minutes or so until we were supposed to meet back up with everyone, so we went to a pub and had a couple beers. The place we went to had over 400 choices of Belgian beer goodness to choose from. They brought some spicy peanuts out with our beers as well.
Unfortunately our day in Brugge came to an end as we caught the buses back to the ship. We ate dinner - I had turkey breast stuffed with plums in gravy while Amber stuck with the trusty sirloin steak. After dinner we fell asleep watching Must Love Dogs.

Brugge - 10/10