Brugge

Going to Brugge for the day starts with a bus journey to Dover, then a ferry crossing to Calais, from Calais it is another bus trip to Brugge - ALOT of travelling but glad I did it.


The day started off with beautiful blue skies so it was a great opportunity to take a pic of the famous whit cliffs of Dover. The air was still cold though so I didn't stay out on the deck but instead retreated indoors after my photo shoot.

The ferry crossing was very rocky and it made me feel like I couldn't walk so after stumbling my way through the duty free shopping I found a seat - made it feel more like a rocking chair rather than someone trying to push me over, MUCH better.

A day of shopping in beautiful Brugge. Belgium is apparently famous for chocolate, beer and lace. I only knew about the chocolate but that is probably cos I am a little biased towards chocolate. According to the tour guide there are pubs that sell up to 300 different types of beer. Can you imagine going for a night out and trying one of every beer in the pub? Even if you settle for half pints - thats ALOT of beer.

Brugge started off as a major port town but over the years it started losing its "business" to other ports in Europe. It eventually became the poorest city in Belgium, looking at it now you would never guess because in 20th century it beacame a popular tourist spot. It has lots of canals and is apparently known as Venice of the north because of all these canals - I am not too sure how Amsterdam lost out on this title.

Maybe it is just because of the Christmas season but just walking into the town centre I got an amazing feeling of Christmas spirit. I have probably just seen too many movies but with crisp cool air chilling my cheeks and my nose and my warm coat wrapped around me I could just imagine sitting inside with a log fire - listening to children playing outside in the snow and carolers singing songs. Definitely not a typical South African Christmas, but somehow snow seems more Christmasy.


They definitely have the most amazing Christmas decorations this side of the equator. Was walking past a shop and in the window a saw a decorated Christmas tree and there was snow falling down over it. Went inside to investigate and it is a tree that works a bit like a chocolate fountain. It has a "pool" of little poystyrene balls at the base of the tree and the polystyrene gets pumped up the centre of the tree, out the top of the tree and hence falls down on the tree as if it were snow. Looked really cool, its a pitty it was a bit big to take home.

The Christmas markets were great too. They were selling lots of winter woolies and of course Christmas decorations. My first purchase was a nice cup of Belgium hot chocolate to keep me warm. In the centre of all the stalls the had an ice rink - just like the movies. All these people were ice skating outside in the middle of the square.

After walking around the markets 4/5 times trying to decide what I should or shouldn't buy - I started running out of time and had to make quick decisions. It also decided to have a bit of a downpour on my head and since I forgot my brolly I decided to make a quick purchase of a funky hat. I know these hats look really dumb on me cos I had already tried on 20 different ones but it was serving a purpose; keeping my hair dry, my head warm and my ears warm.

The downpour was a short one but not long after leaving Brugge it started coming down again and pretty much persisted all the way home. It made for an even rockier return ferry but didn't get sea sick so all was good. Took a pic on my way back to the coach showing the heavy cloud cover.