Part of the day was travel today. Amsterdam to Bruge (It’s in Belgium). We hopped on a train to Antwerp/Antwepren. Once there we had five minutes to get off the train, fun of the platform, check the new train’s platform, run to it, and hop on. Accomplished with no problems. From Antwerp we went to Gent-Saint Peteirs and had another five minute change and then Gent-Saint Peteirs to Bruges.
It was a lot warmer in Bruges than it was in Amsterdam. Lunch were Baggett sandwiches in one of the many squares, but we had to eat quickly because we want to tour the De Halve Maan (the half moon) brewery and get free beer. Our guide was funny and insistent that this beer could cure any ailment from menopause to stress, and contained half of all the daily elements of the food pyramid that, he said, “Wives, if you are tired at the end of the day to cook dinner for you husband, just give him two of our beers and say: I worked so hard on this dinner for you!”. His humor made the beer making process sound entertaining. There were so many steps though. But the view from the top of the brewery made it totally worth it. Coming back down though, some of the steps were so steep we were advised to go down backwards.
After we walked around the city. We walked inside another Benjinhof for Catholic single women. It was peaceful and beautiful. The courtyard we were walking in was a field of yellow daffodils but there were these huge trees shooting up from the ground and sort of leaning. It was very cool looking.
Inside the Church of our Lady was a Michelangelo statue Madonna and Child, it one of the few Michelangelo’s outside of Italy. After taking it all in, I wondered over to sign that was in English and in the first sentence it said Michelangelo and he had a last name. I thought Michelangelo was his last time like many of the other masters. But it’s his first name. When Drew wondered over and read the sign I had an Emily moment, “I never new Michelangelo had a last name. I just thought he was so epic he was one name…like Madonna or Cher.”
Before dinner, we walked to the outskirts of town and saw some real live windmills. They were huge!
We had a lovely dinner at Pili Pili, an Italian restaurant recommended in the Rick Steve’s book. It was a lot of pasta. I ate like half of it but when the waiter came around he was like, “You didn’t finish? No desert for you!” he walked off with the plates and when he came back he placed a little piece of candy in on my plate mat. …hmm, that seems a lot funnier after two glasses of wine.
For now, I will leave with a few pictures that should tell you why you should visit Bruge...
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