January started off as a pretty low-key month. Everyone got back from their Christmas adventures, and we spent a few evenings in Dortmund hanging out, as well as making little Ruhrpott day trips to places like Arnsberg. I started getting a little restless, and lucky for me my friend Alex, who I worked and studied with at Korbel, moved to Brussels to start an internship with the European Parliament. So, we arranged on Monday to do a little Belgium tour for the weekend (how lucky am I that I can seriously email someone saying “want to go to Bruges this weekend? Like how is this real?). Fun fact: if you’re under 26, you can go from the German border anywhere in Belgium for 7.80 euro. And once you’re there, you can travel from city to city for 6 euro. It’s a GoPass 1 and it is awesome.
So anyway, I met Alex on Friday afternoon by the Bourse, and we grabbed a waffle and meandered through Brussels and took in all the sights: Grand Place, Manneken Pis and Jeanneke Pis (statues of children peeing that are major tourist attractions – humans are strange, you guys), the Musical Instrument Museum (awesome), Parc du Cinquantenaire (Brussels’ version of the Arc de Triomphe; we climbed the top and there were pretty good views of the city despite the clouds). From the arc, we meandered back to Alex’s apartment, naturally stopping along the way to pick up some Belgian beers and some frites from a stand outside his apartment.
The next day we stopped at the market outside Alex’s place before we got on the bus in order to make the train to Ghent! We actually ran into a slight hiccup here, when the bus driver unceremoniously kicked everyone off of the bus at a random stop, and then the bus following that one drove away without letting anybody on. So that was fun and also horrible. One thing that made us feel slightly better about ourselves was that all the Belgian people around us were yelling “pourquoi” and shaking their fists at the bus. So we just walked the 20 minutes to the train station and had another problem with the kiosk taking our money without printing our tickets. But eventually we had the tickets, ran to the train, and made it just in time. It was quite the morning.
Pro of the cold, snowy walk: we caught this view of Brussels’ city center
Anyway, we made it to Ghent and the skies were sunny and the city was super cool. We were only there for a couple of hours. Long enough to see the big church with the Ghent altarpiece (pretty cool) and mosey around the old town for a bit. There’s a castle and lots of churches. It was a quirky little town, and I’m glad we stopped through on our way to Bruges.
Ghent
Bruges was AWESOME! We spent the afternoon orienting ourselves by just walking around the city, going to the main churches, and walking along the canals. We had an amazing dinner at Bocca, which is a takeaway pasta place that was perfect and full of carbs and delicious. After dinner we kept walking around, seeing the pretty sights lit up at night. We stopped at Le Trappiste just off the main square before heading back to our hostel for their happy hour! The bar was actually quite hoppin with locals as well as poor backpackers trying to get wifi reception.
A view of the bridge in front of The Begijnhof, or the convent in Bruges. We learned for a tour guide that we just happened to overhear that it wasn’t really a convent, it’s just where a lot of unmarried/widowed women who didn’t have anywhere else to go. People accused them of being witches.
We started bright and early Sunday morning with breakfast at the hostel and then set off into the town. We went to the Grote Markt and climbed up to the top of the Belfry to get some awesome views of the city.
Grote Markt
Artsy Belfry Views
After that we bought some waffles and fries and then went on a tour of the Halve Maan, which is the only brewery that’s still operating within the old town. The tour was great, and after it was over we got a free fresh glass to enjoy the restaurant, where the food smelled amazing (however, we just stuck to the drinks). We did some shopping, and made sure to stop by The Chocolate Line to get some snacks for the train ride home. Noms.
Fresh from the tap
Dark chocolate with mixed berries. Y’ALL.
Laufen mit Liz 