Ok, so Belgium wasn’t all about the food and drinks, but the food and drinks were dynamite!!! We stayed in a house we rented through Airbnb just outside of Bruges. It was pretty new and had a big yard. There is a “but” coming here….. but, it was the first place we stayed where someone actually lives there on a regular basis. All of our other rentals have been places people own but don’t live in. So it was a little weird because all of the guy’s stuff was in drawers and there were his personal photos everywhere. He just packs a bag and lives at his girlfriends house while people rent his place. Anyway, it was clean and conveniently located so that helped me get over feeling like I was doing something wrong. It didn’t seem to phase Mark and the girls at all.

We spent our first day in Bruges, known as the Venice of the North. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. We signed up online for a historical walking tour of the city. We’ve found doing these types of tours when we first get to a place are a good way to get our bearings and have context for what we are looking at or taking photos of later on. When we got to the meeting spot we found out there was a walking food tour leaving at the same time, so we decided to do that first and save the historical tour later. This, was a GREAT decision.

Did you know that fries were invented in Belgium? We learned all about it and got to sample some of the famous fries (don’t ever call them french fries in Belgium). After that there was chocolate (there are standards for the amount of cocoa that must be in the chocolate in Belgium – even chocolate sold in grocery stores has to follow the policy), waffles (two kinds: Liege waffles – very sweet and rich, and Belgian(Brussels)  waffles – not as sweet, good with toppings), more chocolate and Belgian specialties, and then beer (“old man beer” as Neve would call it – “good beer” according to Mark).

It was past lunch time when we finished (there were only samples at each stop so my family of bottomless pits were not full) and there was about 45 minutes until the other walking tour, so of course everyone needed to fuel up. More fries!

With full bellies we met up with Lander (our late 20 something tour guide). He grew up in Bruges and also runs a B & B and rents an apartment to tourists. His expertise on the city and witty sense of humour made for a great afternoon. At this point we knew we had to come back for another day. On our second day we strolled around, went on a boat ride on the canals, bought some chocolate, visited the torture museum (it’s exactly what it sounds like….the history of torture methods and instruments set up in very life like displays – not our best parenting move), ate one of the national dishes of  Belgian(Flemish stew) and a chicken stew type thing that was delicious, drank beer and ate waffles.

Everywhere we went we kept bumping into Lander; it became a bit of a joke. We first saw him during our boat ride through the canals. We were looking around and listening to the information about the history of the buildings and much to my embarrassment I hear Mark shout “Hey Landers”. First of all, his name was Lander (not Landers) AND he was in the middle of giving a tour AND there were many people around, none of whom were randomly shouting peoples names. He looked over in our direction, confused at first and then saw us and recognized us from the previous day. He gave us a wave as we passed him by. Then, we were having lunch at a street side cafe and he walk by with his tour group and saw us there. He correctly guessed what we were having and gave us the thumbs up (apparently we had chosen a great spot to try a traditional Flemish meal). Then, as we were looking around the town square we saw him again. Mark made sure to get in his line of vision, which totally threw him off of his game with the tour group. He laughed and shouted out to us asking if he could take us for a beer, so we went to one of his favourite spots beside a canal. He asked about our trip and told us all about growing up in Bruges and we compared life in our respective countries (the girls really like doing that). Once again, this type of encounter ranked among one of their best memories of Bruges (besides the food).

Our visit to an area wouldn’t be complete without finding some kind of war remnant. Mark found the location of a German bunker complex and so after a rainy day of school work and trip planning, we got in the car and went bunker hunting. “Traces of War”, once again, did not disappoint.

Our rainy day research made us veer a little off course from our original plan. What was the original plan? We had intended to leave Belgium and head to The Netherlands, then on to northern Germany and work our way south to Austria, Italy etc. But there were some specific things we wanted to see in Holland, and the timing wasn’t quite working out, we needed to fit some other places in first. So, we adjusted our route and made our way east instead.

We said goodbye to Belgium several times over…..more about that in the next post!!