Brugge, Belgium

We had a lovely 3 days in Brugge in Flemish Belgium. A gorgeous little canal town not unlike Venice (except with less tourists and pigeons). We enjoyed walking the streets and discovering little squares and pretty vistas and bridges over the canalways. Our second day we took a 4 hour bike tour through the countryside around the old town. It was a glorious sunny day and we had a small group (3 plus our guide Jos) so we had a really informative time. I even tried a little Belgium beer called Kriek, which is a cherry flavoured beer (amongst the some 500+ varieties of Belgian beer). I could get to like that kind of sweet beer I have to say!
Our third day we just walked around the town and went to the Chocolate Museum. A fascinating story of how Belgium became such a centre for chocolate. There is also a new Fritje Museum: a museum dedicated to the fried potato chip, claimed to be invented by Belgiums (and not the French!). The Belgium fritje is a staple in Belgium. It comes accompanied with any food you order. You can also find vendors in market squares selling their fritjes with any number of sauces: mayonaise, tomato sauce, chilli sauce, curry sauce, mustard etc etc etc. So me being the fry queen, I really enjoyed the fritjes!
And Craig enjoyed the chocolates. There are so many chocolate shops in Brugge that it was hard to work out which ones were the good ones (some may argue that all Belgian chocolates are good) but Jos gave us a tip on the best (and most expensive) place to buy fresh hand made Belgian chocolates (that aren't factory made): The Chocolate Line. Amazing stuff there. I must say the smells that came out of some of those shops were amazing though. Mmmmm praline...

Brugge is also big on lace. I'm talking giant doilies and hankerchiefs and the like. But we never found out why but apparently its been big for 500 years. I did not buy any lace.
Sorry but photos will be uploaded when I get home in a few days time.