Bruges: Filled with More Waffles, Chocolate, Beer, & Fries With Mayo

We headed to Bruges, Belgium on Sunday, December 28th.  We were pretty excited about this trip, as we had friends who traveled to the same spot.  We were looking forward to meeting up with them a few times.  Before we even arrived to the hotel, we saw them walking the streets.  Talk about a small world!  We LOVED our hotel in Bruges, the Crowne Plaza, as we had an amazing view and they upgraded us to a suite!

 View from one of our hotel room windows

We ventured out into the city, to find the Belfry Tower and a giant plaza area where there was yet another Christmas Market.  I have lost count on how many Christmas Markets we have been to at this point.  We walked into a pub to have a couple beers and some great burgers.  We stopped in 2be Beer Wall, which had many different types of beer on tap. Although, I will always think of Belgium having some of the best beer I have ever tasted...I also had one of the worst ones too.  It was cherry flavored and tasted like cough syrup.  But I pushed through and even finished it!

 Belfry Tower

Beer Wall

We were able to walk around the city before meeting up with our friends at a pub and explore the city together at night.  We also went into Dumon's, a great chocolate shop.  Jeff and I just finished the last piece last night...so good! We enjoyed our time with friends, and probably had a little too much fun in Bruges as the beers were very strong!

 The Jo's

 Bruges gang

 Some of the amazing chocolates

The next day, Jeff and I woke up to explore the city more. But first...street waffles for breakfast! We walked through The Beguinage, which used to be known just as a peaceful area, now a monastery.  They had signs in the area that asked for silence.  After walking through this area, we made our way to the edge of the city next to the canals and to visit the windmills.

The monastery

 One of the many windmills

We headed back towards the city centre and explore a few other areas of the city.  We made our way back to the plaza area where I grabbed a plate of fries with mayo as that is a delicacy there in Belgium.  It was pretty good, although maybe a little too much mayo for my liking. Jeff grabbed a snack from the market, some large dish with potatoes and sauces all over it.

A beautiful museum behind us.

Known as the "Best View" in Bruges

Beautiful canals

Next on the list...we grabbed a beer at the Historium Brugge, which had some of the best views of the city.  We timed it right, by accident as the sun was setting and we had a great view! We tried a couple new beers, then met up with our friends again for dinner.  We enjoyed dinner and tried a few pubs afterwards, and then headed home as we were all heading back to England the next day.

 Sunset over the markets and ice skating

 Belfry Tower

Jeff's shrimp pasta with a few mussels on top.

The next day was Jeff's Birthday!  We woke up to climb the Belfry Tower, 366 steps to the top! We made it to the top and were able to hear the bells chime a beautiful little tune.  We finished our time in Bruges grabbing ones last treat...chocolate covered strawberries from Godiva. Yum!

 The Birthday Boy!

View from 366 steps up

Since we had time before our turn on the Euro Tunnel, we went to a coastal town, Blankenberg.  It was only a 25 minute drive, and you could tell this area would be packed in the summer.  The boardwalk was lined with restaurants and shops.  We walked out on the pier, and went down to the beach to put our hands in the water. We have officially touched the North Sea...although it was freezing cold.  It was definitely weird having a coat, boots, gloves, and a hat on at the beach.

 So windy & cold, but definitely worth it!

 I gave Jeff a beach vacation for his birthday...ha!

 

On to the next adventure...

Sugar: Apparently the Only Food Group in Brussels

Hope you all had a great Christmas, celebrating with friends and family.  We definitely were sad that we missed seeing and getting together with our loved ones.  We had a small Christmas together and prepped for our exciting trip to Belgium.

We woke up and headed on the road by 6 AM on the 26th.  It took us about 3 hours to get to the south coast to catch the train via the Euro Tunnel.  It was a crazy experience putting your car on a train, knowing you'll be under the English Channel within minutes.  On our way back to England, I videotaped the experiences, as we weren't as quick to think of doing this the first round. Unfortunately, I was unable to put it on this post because the file size was too large. It was a 30 minute ride to France, then another 2 hours (I think, time change has me all confused) to Brussels.  Jeff did a great job adjusting to being back on the "right" side of the road, as France and Belgium are like us, in America.  It was funny to see our driver's side on the right, and most other cars we passed were on the left, like our cars in America.  We had to get a special driving kit to take with us that had a giant GB (Great Britain) magnet to basically let people to know to watch out for us.  The kit also had other safety based tools inside as well, like a breathalyzer. Ha!

 A few facts about the Chunnel before viewing our video:

• 31.4 miles long
• Was finished in 1994
• Drilled through the bedrock at the bottom of the English Channel
• 10 people were killed during its construction
• It is barely profitable and went bankrupt in 1998

Reminder: The video will only work on computers, not mobile devices

We made it to Brussels, checked into the hotel, and hit the streets pretty soon after.  Brussels was a beautiful and fairly large metropolitan city as there were many skyscrapers.  But Brussels also offered the European feel, with many older buildings filled with history.  We didn't really have much of an agenda other than trying all the new beer, chocolates, and our personal favorite...waffles.  They had a couple Christmas Markets set up, which were neat, but so crowded.  We popped into a beautiful church before heading on our way around the city.

We went to a place that made my family, especially my brother-in-law so jealous. Wait for it...Chi-Chi's.  Anyone that knows my family knows we cannot get enough of Mexican food, and growing up we always went there! So, I was a little nervous to eat there as they closed down all of the USA Chi-Chi's because of a Hepatitis outbreak.  There are still many open in China and other European countries.  Definitely wasn't the best food, and no free chips & salsa...but glad we gave it one last go.

We ended our night, walking around the city seeing all of the sights.  The famous Manneken Pis, which is this little fountain of a bronze boy who is peeing into the fountain base.  Not sure how to word this one and still be proper...as the water comes out of, well...you know.  He also has an extensive wardrobe with hundreds of different outfits.  Located around the fountain were all of the famous chocolate shops. We even stopped in for a few to eat later.  Jeff and I also watched a bakery make all of their different goodies, which was fun to see the process.  We ended our night with a street waffle. IT. WAS. AMAZING.  You know we eat a lot when I have a Brussels folder on my computer labeled "Food & Drink".

 Manneken Pis in his little outfit urinating into the fountain

 Even the chocolate shops made their own little statues

Waffles!

The next morning we woke up and headed to this large garden/park.  On the map it looked massive with lots of fountains and garden areas. To our surprise it was a bunch of dead plants, and ill-kept grounds.  We walked through anyway, as the palace was on the opposite side.  We snapped a few photos, and headed to eat breakfast at a cute little cafe nearby.

 You can see how dreary the park looked.

 The palace.  We could not go in, which seemed to be a theme in Brussels.

Mont des Arts

At this point, the crazy weather began as it started to rain and then...SNOW! It was so exciting to see snow, as we had not seen it in a year. Downside, it was freezing cold walking around the city.  We attempted to look for these comic strips on the side of the buildings, but were pretty unsuccessful so we stopped into a pub to have a couple beers to warm up.  We grabbed lunch soon after, and then explored later that night.

 Warming up!

 Town Hall

 Beautiful when lit up. Check out the video below where they created a light show with music.

You'll have to turn your head to the side to view, as I don't know how to change it!

 Steamed milk with a dark chocolate piece of chocolate to mix in to make...Hot Chocolate! 

Sooo good!

 Snow!

 Ice skating.

We woke up the next morning to head to our next destination, although we had some troubles getting out of the parking garage.  For about 20 minutes we thought our car was locked in the garage, as if it was only open on the weekdays.  We ended up learning that 2 out of the 3 garage doors were closed, so we finally made our way into the garage...phew!


On to the next adventure...

Walking With Scholars

After our time in Bath, we headed to a town in between Bath and Oxford, Swindon, to stay for the night.  We ended up having a little extra time, so we went to see the new Hunger Games movie.  We laughed, as we remembered we saw the last movie in England during our time looking for houses last November. We joked as we now need to come back to England to see Part II.  We woke up on Sunday morning to drive a little less than an hour to Oxford.  We walked around the city for a bit enjoying all of the beautiful buildings.

Our weekend of famous authors continued as Oxford was known to house C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe) and J.R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings). These authors, along with a few others met at the pub, The Eagle and Child (The name of the pub is based on a famous myth).  They used to meet here to discuss literature and writing. Oxford was also known to house Alice Liddell, who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 

 

Up next was a tour of one of Oxford's most famous libraries, Bodleian Library, which many of you will recognize as one of the places Harry Potter was filmed. The Divinity School was the first part of the library tour.  Our tour guide spent literally 30 minutes talking about the ceiling.  Each little piece the architect created had a story behind it.  Although it was beautiful, I think our tour guide might have spent a little too much time telling us about these details. For the Harry Potter fans, this room was used as the hospital in the first two movies.  In real history it was used as a school house that approximately 40 students attended lecture all taught in Latin.

Next on the tour was Duke Humfrey's Library, and no picture were allowed here.  Although, I would click on my link, as it is very impressive.  In Harry Potter, it was used as the Hogwart's Library.  The books were so incredibly old, and some were chained to parts of the desks as they were not allowed to leave the library.

We headed to Radcliffe Camera next, as it was another library in a separate building.  No pictures inside as well.  It was a more modern library, and the inside would be something you would see in a library in the states. Although the outside was pretty impressive, as it was a stand alone cylinder building. Students still use this library and other parts of the Bodleian Library.

Radcliffe Camera

 Not our best selfie, and I hesitated to even put it on the blog.  But hey, you have to have proof that we actually visit these places, right? Behind us is the Tower of the Five Orders, which is special because the detail is on the inside for those people of the university, rather than showing it off to the townspeople (boring old building on the other side facing the city).

We walked around the city, snapping photographs of other beautiful buildings and sights.  

 

The Bridge of Sighs on the left and a beautiful college building within the city. 

I'll end my post with HAPPY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR as this will be my last post of 2014, as we have travels in our future. Have no fear, 2015 will bring many new adventures, countries, and excitement! Until then.

On to our 2015 adventures...

Don't Touch the Water!

This past weekend, Jeff and I decided to visit a few cities in England.  We left early on Saturday morning to visit the city of Bath.  One major difference that set this city apart from other English cities was the color of the buildings.  All of the buildings were a light tan color, rather than the normal red brick look in other cities.  It was very beautiful.

The view as you're walking into the city centre

Bath is known for the Roman Baths, which are one of the best preserved Roman remains in the world.  The area has over 1 million liters of natural spring water flowing through.  The water's temperature is around 46 degrees Celsius (over 114 degrees Fahrenheit). You are not allowed to drink or even touch the water given it is untreated and you could get incredibly sick.  Guess who touched the water? Jeff...

One of the spots you could see of water still running through the grounds.  They showed this stream of water flowing from one part of the building to another. 

If you look closely you can see the steam above the water.

It was great to walk around with our free audio guides to learn about the history, and see the main area where the Roman's used to bath.  They had many artifacts that were used during that time, ro even things they found in the baths like coins.  One of my favorite things they found were stones from rings that were worn.  Since the water was so warm, the gems would come loose and they found them at the bottom of the baths.  There were so many intricate details that made them quite unique.  Within the grounds, there were many different areas, although the main bath (largest) is in the picture below.

 The main bath

There were other areas inside the buildings that used to hold water, but has dried up since.  We were looking in one area, and Jeff actually spotted a rat. Gross. Although the water was gone in these areas, you could see the remaining steps and even the platforms they used raise the floor to heat it below.

The platforms they used so heat could travel below the floor of the bath. 

Since you were not able to touch the water in the baths, they had a special spot where you could taste the same water, only it was purified. It was warm, so it didn't taste the best to me. 

For any Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice) fans out there, Bath is where she lived.  I think she used many of the sights in Bath in parts of her novel, although I cannot confirm that fact.  We walked around the city to see the Bath Abbey, which was beautiful although we did not travel inside.  I did make a special note to take a picture of angels climbing Jacob's ladder.

We ended our time in Bath eating at a local pub where Jeff got this cute little pie with a "B" on it.  How perfect!? We went to the Assembly Rooms. This building consisted of 3 main rooms, and were used for the fancy people of the time to have parties and gatherings.  They were currently setting up for some sort of wedding or party, so we weren't able to travel freely from room to room.  The pictures were not too exciting, so please click the link in this paragraph if you'd like to learn more or see pictures.

We ended our time in Bath looking at The Circus, which was pretty hard to photograph given it was in the shape of a circle.  The word "circus" in England can mean multiple roads that join together to form a circle.  We have one right outside our house here in Nottingham, and quite a few on my running route.  After that we went to the Royal Crescent, which was impossible to take a picture of given how large it is. It is a row of houses, a hotel, and a museum.  It was used in many film productions, and is a major attraction in Bath. Just obviously not easy to photograph, unless you're in the sky. 

 The circus

 The best shot I could get of the buildings. I didn't get them all in it, but at least you can see the curve.

On to the next adventure...