Brugge

On a quick weekend trip to the Low Countries, I spent one night in Brugge. A major trading center before its harbor silted up, Brugge is now a major tourist exchange. It is also a really cute town.

Establishing itself as a bona fide European city, Brugge has a park with the inevitable Man On Horse With Sword.



Further in towards town in the central square, full of tourists, cute buildings, and stands selling "french fries". You have your choice of about 15 different sauces to choose from, though frankly I preferred mine plain. In any event, here are two pictures of the main square:




Here is a more typical street in Brugge. Most of the businesses seem to be either chocolate shops, lace shops, tea rooms (fancy cafes), restaurants, etc. Oh, and waffle stands!



Once I had completed the walking tour in the guidebook, I went in search of the rest of town. There are a lot of cute little side streets, with fantastic houses, such as this one here:



Many of the buildings have fun details, such as this simple decoration



or this more elaborate one:



As in the Netherlands, Belgium is a land of canals. Here is one nice view of a canal near the center of town.



No trip to Belgium would be complete without some beer. I tried both the "mainstream" and "local microbrew" beers. Both were excellent. Of course, "mainstream" means something different than in the US. For example, this beer is made by InBev - if only Bud Lite were served like this!




One of the tricky things about Brugges is that due to all the tourist traffic, it is hard to find a place to sit down and relax (without having to buy a 20 euro meal). I finally located a fantastic coffee shop - how can you beat this!