Bruges & Gent 2010

6th July

We had one day too see all that we wanted to see outside of Brussels. We chose to go to Bruges and Gent. We were up and organised early (Which was surprising after how well we slept), but mainly due to Dan telling me that it was 8.30 when we woke up, so we powered through getting ready. It was actually 7.30 - he struggles to read his watch, it's not digital! That was fine, it meant we were on a train at 9am, and in Bruges a little after 10am.

We grabbed a map from tourist info and headed for the beautiful old town. We pretty much just wandered the streets, looking in all the chocolate shops and patting the horses while they weren't pulling along carriages. Being short on time we decided that the best way to see a large amount of the city was to do a canal cruise. So we bought tickets and jumped into one of the little boats with about 15 other people and set off. It was like being on a Disneyland Ride, with tiny narrow little canals, and very low bridges. The buildings were so picturesque and beautiful. It was a lovely half an hour on the water.

After our canal ride, we continued walking through all the old streets, stopping to look in a few churches. While we were taking some photos at one particular point we were recognised. We ran into the girl that was travelling back from Dubrovnik with her parents on the bus after the Volcano debacle was in Bruges with her boyfriend. What a small world. We had a quick catch up with her before continuing on.

By about 2pm we'd seen all the big sights so it was back on the train and off to Gent. It was only about 20minutes on the train, but we needed to catch a tram from the train station into the city centre. We got a little bit lost when we got off the tram, but we eventually managed to find the tourist information centre. The woman there was so helpful, she gave us this really comprehensive self guided walking tour that we could do around the city. We left the info centre and started our walk in the main square, which holds the big tower and a church. Sadly the whole area was being ripped up and having new tiles or something laid, so it was like walking through a construction zone. The building were fantastic and I would like to think that the church was one of the most amazing of the churches we've been into (And we've been in a LOT!!) The guided tour took us pretty much the whole way through Gent - and the information was really good, it felt like we had a real guide with us. Gent was not completely dissimilar to Bruges, it had a very similar design and the buildings and rivers were quite similar. However, I think I liked Gent much more than Bruges as it wasn't overrun with tourists and touristy souvenir shops. We finished our walk up luckily right at the time when my camera's memory card filled up (Still hadn't taken Greece and Werchter's photos off!!). We made our way back on the tram to the main train station (Admittedly we could've walked it, but we'd already bought return tickets!!)

The train journey back into Brussels took about 40 minutes, where we grabbed a Kebab for dinner on the walk back to the hotel (Seriously, the only affordable dinner option in Brussels), and sleeping soundly not long after. We had plans to go see Twilight at the movies, but it didn't start until 9pm, and I think we were asleep before then!!!