Brussels and Bruges

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  Brussels, Belgium
Friday, March 2, 2012

For the last 8 days, we have been travelling in Belgium. In our first trip we had the attitude that missing Belgium would not be so bad.  But now that we have left, we realised that missing Belgium would have been a big mistake. 

It's not for the obvious reasons, the delicious chocolates and the interesting new types of beer, but Belgium itself is the kind of place that can amaze and stun in the most relaxed and easy going way.  Our first stop was Brussels, we had heard stories that it was dark, dirty even, but upon arriving we quickly found that it was none of those things.  There is grandeur within areas like the Grand Palace, which is a giant square surrounded by some of the most beautiful architecture we have seen.  There are also cafes and bars that feel so close to a day spent wondering around in Brunswick.  There is art in the most unexpected areas, as you turn every corner you have to look up and all the way around to see them.  The artwork was on parts of buildings that would jut out of nowhere and in the most inconspicuous places and they all have a different cartoon pictures or graphic designs.    The music in Brussels certainly kept Luke happy, each place was filled with soul or jazz which added to the easy going nature of the city.  Brussels is also renowned for its "Pissing statues", Manning Pis is a statue of a small boy pissing into a fountain, another is a dog pissing on a pole and the last is of a lady pissing.  We were told the lady one is quite vulgar and no one really likes it.  Sorry Mum for saying piss and pissing but that is what they call it.

One of our highlights was a visit to the Magritte museum.  His most iconic painting is of a man in a bowler hat with an apple hiding his face.  It was wonderful to see all his different styles of art, we liked some so much that we left with some of our favourites in postcard form. 

One of the most iconic things that everyone says about Belgium is chocolate, although our first experience wasn’t all that we had hoped.  Our travel book says that chocolate that you can buy in the supermarket is just as good as the specialty stores.  Sounds crazy I know but we gave it a try.  We opened our first bar, which looked similar to Wonka bar, and bit into it.  Luke’s face squished up and I yelled out “Yucky, Yucky, spit it out, spit it out”.  We then spent the next few seconds spitting over the bin in our hotel room.  I can’t believe we got that so wrong, it was like that first meal in Italy the frozen pizza and soggy schnitzels. 

We have been lucky enough to catch up with Luke’s cousin Sarah whilst here.  She has been living in Brussels for 4 months and we spent the day with her walking around the streets and then had a delicious dinner at a great burger bar near her house.  It was great to see a different side to the city walking around with someone who knows the area and also to see a familiar face.  Thanks Sarah for spending a day with us, we had an awesome time!

We only stayed in Brussels for 3 days and then after a quick hour train ride we arrived in Bruges.    

Our hostel was above a bar, Charlie Rockets, and it was about 5 minutes’ walk to the main square which has the most famous landmark, the Bell Tower.  The best views of Bruges are by night, all the buildings are lit up with yellow lights and it feels like you have gone back in time.  On our first day we went on a free walking tour.  We were lucky enough that we were the only people on there so we got a personal tour of Bruges.  It was great to be shown some of the places that were used in a movie that we have seen recently called “In Bruges”.  It’s a hilarious English movie that was filmed entirely in the city, so if you want to check out a great movie download it.

Although our hostel was great there was a group staying there that was a little intimidating.  The only way to describe them was a massive group of skinheads wearing punk clothing complete with doc martins and braces.  All the girls had shaved heads all except a fringe at the front and one guy was bald except for a Mohawk that was nicely braided down the back.  I know you shouldn’t judge people on how they look but they looked they were thrown out of the movie “This is England”.

Whilst we were in Bruges, Luke had his birthday.  So for his very special day we went to the Salvador Dali museum.  The museum was filled with pieces that we had not seen or heard about before so it was wonderful.  After that we had a nice lunch at a café and then went back to the hostel to get ready for dinner.  We had got some great advice from our walking tour guide to go to a place called Cookies.  It was a small two storey restaurant down the smallest street in Bruges and it had tapas.  After a small detour to a pub for a pre-dinner drink we arrived.  We had booked a table the night before and the girl miss heard Luke, instead of a table for Luke Mirabella we had a table for Luc and Bella.  The food was amazing we had Italian ham, olives, olive oil and bread to start.  The second course was tuna salad on bread croutons, which was beautiful.  The third and our favourite of the night were crumbed prawns with a spicy sauce.  The fourth meal and probably our least favourite was scallops with seared mushrooms, we quite liked the scallops although the mushrooms were not our taste.  Finally three small pieces of steak, some chips and a salad, the perfect way to finish the meal.  We couldn’t believe how much we enjoyed our meals, we had such a nice evening listening to nice music and chatting about how the trip has been the best thing we have ever done.

Thank God, Spring has started we were so excited to see it come along.  We have now been in Europe for all the seasons, so far nothing beats Summer.  But who knows…..

Love you and miss you all xoxoxo

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Luke at the Grand Square   Comments!	Belinda at the Grand Square	Rubbing the statue for Good Luck   Comments!	Tintin art   Comments!
Manning Pis or Pissing Boy in costume	More artwork in Brussels	Artwork 2	Artwork 3
Luke in Brussels	In Bruges   Comments!	Luke doing the windmill	Bruges at night
Square at night   Comments!	Belltower	Market Square	Market Square 2   Comments!
Lukes birthday dinner at Cookies   Comments!	Belltower at night

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