Well, Bruges is beautiful! Every street is like a scene from a postcard. As soon as we arrived (after the nightmare journey), we found a pub in the main square and passed the whole afternoon drinking beer and eating waffles. Little did we know, that Lucy's *speaking English to foreign people voice* sounds very very similar to Flemish. Our running joke was that Lucy was fluent and should do all the translating for us.(Perhaps luckily) Belgians seem to speak better English than us, so we didn't have much need for it.
Our hostel ran a pub crawl in the evening, and we thought we'd be the only ones going along. In fact, a group of about twenty folk turned up so this gave us a great chance to meet some pals! Unfortunately, Colin Farrell did not attend, but we did make friends with some cool Aussies, Canadians and cocknies. The pub crawl was so much fun, maybe because we really were not expecting that kind of messy night! Several shots and cheap pints of beer later, we staggered home quite chuffed with the laughs we'd had.
Surprisingly, we were up at the crack of dawn the following morning. With our varying degrees of hangover, we hit the canal tour and saw Bruges by boat. There are 45km of canal in Bruges, although a lot of it has been built over. There are bridges and buildings from the 15th and 16th centuries, and from the canal we did feel like we'd stepped back into the Middle Ages! Apart from the digital cameras.
The most famous building in Bruges is the belfry in market square. 368 steps to the top of the tower. It seemed like a great idea to climb up for the view, but when we were half way up the narrow spiral staircase (with hundreds of stairs either up or down) I think we half wished we'd stayed on the ground!
After lunch, we napped and people-watched in the market square for a few hours before heading back to the pub to pass the evening (Stanley Tucci from The Hunger Games etc was at the next table - 80% sure of it!).
I don't think any of us expected Bruges to be as scenic or as much fun as it was. Such a cool city to walk round, drink beer and appreciate the laid back atmosphere. Probably two nights was plenty to see the sights, when we go back it will be to do nothing other than drink beer!