Everything We Did in Bruges, and How we Got Here
Another adventure was beckoning us after a summer stint in the UK, and we decided to up sticks and have another European adventure. Since we covered France, Spain and Portugal last time, it was time to explore some new countries and cities - First stop: Bruges!
Neither of us had been to Belgium before, so we arrived with no expectations apart from a sneaking suspicion there’d be a lot of beer, chocolate, waffles and chips (fries) and the Flemish people did not disappoint! Everywhere you look, there’s someone snaffling a waffle.
Before we could explore Bruges, we had to actually get there from the UK. As we were driving our campervan there, we decided to take the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk. We stayed over in Dover the night before in a car park that was only about 5 minutes from the ferry port - this turned out to be very handy because we slept in and woke up 40 minutes before check-in was closing - classic! The car park is free overnight from 6pm until 8am so we didn’t pay a thing as we arrived late and left early.
First, we drove through the French border control where they checked our passports, then we went through to the next booth to collect our ticket for our windscreen and drove to the lane that corresponded with what was on our ticket. As our van is registered as a mini-bus, and there were no others, we had a whole lane to ourselves! We still had to sit for about an hour while they loaded the various other vehicles onto the ferry from the different lanes, then we finally got to drive onto the ferry. We drove on, and to our joy, had that lane to ourselves as well so we were right at the front and ended up being one of the first to disembark! The ferry crossing itself was really straightforward - no waves at all, so I didn’t feel seasick - and two hours later, we arrived in Dunkirk. Tor, of course, took full advantage of an opportunity to nap before engaging their role of chief co-pilot and navigator.
Disembarking the ferry, I was feeling confident driving on the other side of the road after our last European trip, and was excited to cross the France/Belgium border into a brand new country! Like the ferry crossing, the drive was simple and straightforward. We drove along the motorway all the way to Bruges, and enjoyed the thrill of overtaking on the left-side. It took less than an hour and a half to arrive at our car park we’d found on park4night (https://park4night.com/en/place/551701). It’s just a humble truckstop, but had plenty of other campers in it as well as lorries so it felt safe. It was about a 20 - 30 minute walk into the city centre, but with plenty of gorgeous architecture to marvel at along the way, the walk absolutely flew by.
I thought Bruges would be beautiful, because of what I’d seen and read online, but I didn’t expect it to be THIS beautiful. I literally felt like I was walking through a theatre set. The cobbled roads and buildings made of thousands of tiny bricks look like a giant painting. We particularly loved that no two buildings looked the same. In a lot of cities, we’ve found that buildings have to conform to a certain aesthetic, but Bruges doesn’t seem to have that rule! Some were taller than others, some had brick-built fronts that went up past the rooftops, some had sculptures carved into the walls, and hundreds of other variations. You could honestly spend a few minutes looking up at each shop/house you walk past, taking in the intricate details that make them so unique from one another.
On our first day, we arrived in the afternoon, so we strolled into town. With only a couple of hours before it got dark, we just had a little look around the centre before finding our first pub of the trip; Bieratelier. The first thing we saw was these huge flights with 12 different beers to taste - we weren’t brave enough to give one a go at that stage because Belgian beer is notoriously strong, and as mentioned, this was early afternoon! The bar was so cool, though. It had beer mats stuck all over the walls, with notes and names from past visitors, and had a load of signed bras hanging from the ceiling which was odd, but I guess that’s the kind of thing people do after 12 x 8 - 12% ABV testers! We enjoyed a couple of beers in Bieratelier before heading to our second pub - Yesterday’s World. Yesterday’s World was so cosy, and full of antique ornaments and paintings which were all for sale. There wasn’t a patch of wall you could see without something hanging on it. The staff here were so welcoming and recommended we try the flight containing three beers each (much more palatable than the one in Bieratelier). The flight came with 2 x Brugse Zot Blonde, 2 x Kwak Amber and 2 x St Bernardus Pale. I didn’t care to ask for the ABVs of each, but it was certainly enough to get us pretty tipsy!
After a couple more beers in Yesterday’s World, we ended the night at a bar called “The Pub”, recommended by a friend who had visited Bruges recently. Although my memory isn’t serving me well due to the alcohol consumed prior to our arrival, The Pub had a really nice chilled out vibe, some decent music on and the staff were also friendly here. We called it a night after ___ pints here, and went home to where Tora had been inspired to make a pan of chips for our supper. When in Belgium!
We decided to have a much more wholesome day on day two (and I was feeling a little tender from the day before), so we embarked on a circular walk that takes you around the outskirts of the whole city. This was such a beautiful walk, and particularly at this time of year when the trees are all shades of dark green, orange and brown, and the crisp autumn leaves are filling the pavements. The city is also surrounded by a canal, so for the vast majority of the walk, you’re right by the water. We stopped for a little brunch at a cafe and tried our first Belgian waffle. Mine came with strawberries and Belgian chocolate sauce, and Tora’s came with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. They were delicious, and the sugar rush was very much needed. Back to the trail, we continued along the canal and crossed some impressive bridges with gorgeous views, watched many bridges opening to allow the boats through, and saw loads of watchtower-type buildings.
We came across a really cool piece of artwork called 'Coupure' by Ugo Dehaes. The sculpture is of a human lying face down, but is activated by a motion detector when you walk around it, and it actually dances. Quite fitting, given that the artist was a choreographer. The segments of the statue move to give the illusion that it is dancing, and it is timed to dance for the same amount of time it takes for the nearby bridge to open and close when letting boats through. Another link between the two, is the materials used for both structures - bluestone and oak. It was a really enjoyable thing to see during our walk as it was unexpected, and gave us some free culture to enjoy.
Our last surprise of the walk was the windmills! Right at the end, we found two beautifully preserved traditional windmills sitting on top of a hill that you could walk right up to. The first one we visited, Sint-Janshuismolen, has been in the same place and same state since 1770! And the other, Nieuwe Papegaai (The New Parrot), was moved here in 1970, but had been originally built in 1790.
After a few hours walking, we decided to get back into the centre and check out some more local culture (beer). We’d already researched bars in Bruges and had some saved on Google Maps - the first bar we actually stumbled across was one of these bars of interest, The Monk. The Monk is a cool spot with a large outdoor seating area, comfy seats inside, and pool tables and other games upstairs. Lots of nice (and strong) beers to choose from, and a really chilled out vibe with good music on.
During our walk in the centre, we also came across a really grand church (St Anne’s), and had a look inside. It was a bit hard to follow along with the infographics on screen, but from what we could tell, the foundations of the church had been a mass burial site. They’d also excavated some old slabs with paintings on them, from hundreds of years ago, and they were on display in the church, too. The interior was amazing - huge dark gothic paintings filled the walls, and the furniture was all dark wood. As far as churches go, this was really worth a look inside.
Feeling peckish after burning off our waffles, we headed to an Indian Restaurant called Garlic n Greens. Weird name, but it had a lot of veggie options and we were in the mood for a nice meal with a bottle of wine (it was also our anniversary, so we were celebrating three wonderful years together). A couple of things to mention about Garlic n Greens - 1. If you’re hungry, more is definitely more. 2. When they say you get four poppadoms with the dips, they mean four QUARTERS of a single poppadom! Yes, we ordered poppadoms and dips, paid €3 for some mango chutney as it wasn’t in the dip selection, and one single poppadom was served to us. Thankfully, we’d ordered some pani puri as well, which was nice, and filled the empty hole that our poppadom (singular) had left, but then our next mistake was thinking one curry and rice between the two of us would be enough. No. It came out in a bloody skillet pan and the portion of rice was tiny as well! Don’t get me wrong, it was what I’d consider a normal serving for one person, but I’ve never been to an Indian restaurant and been served a normal serving before! So, as you can imagine, we went in thinking we’d share a load of poppadoms and pani puris to start with, then move on and have a decent sized curry to share, but what we actually ended up with was a two course meal that MIGHT fill one person if they were eating on their own. To give it its due, the food was really tasty and the red wine we had was delicious. We enjoyed our time overall here, but didn’t come out feeling full. (Yes, we did order more poppadoms because we’d barely touched the dip, and yes, another single poppadom with additional dip was served so we had to pay for another full portion).
We fooled ourselves into thinking we’d call it a night after Garlic n Greens, but after a mere one minute of walking towards the van, we found ourselves outside of a very welcoming cocktail bar called Groot Vlaenderen. It was so dark and cosy in here - very posh - but it was our anniversary after all… And with that, we went on to treat ourselves to two whisky cocktails each. The cocktail was called Penicillin because of its “healing” qualities - smoky whisky, ginger, lemon and some other medicinal ingredients. It was divine. Tora single-handedly ate them out of their popcorn stock, as they kept refilling our dish as soon as it was all gone. Poor thing was probably still starving after that curry. After this, it was definitely time for bed.
Our third and final day in Bruges came around so quickly, so we settled on doing something a bit more cultural. We went back into the centre of town and paid a visit to the Salvador Dali exhibition. Overall, we really enjoyed our time there, but it was red hot inside and the layout was all over the place. Some of the paintings were hung so high, that we couldn’t really take in their intricate details - something I love about art galleries is getting right up in the piece’s face and seeing the brushstrokes and all the tiny details you miss when looking at it on a screen, etc. But other than that, it was really great to be able to see the bizarre, obscure, and sometimes disturbing, pieces Dali created during his life.
Another pub we wanted to visit was called De Garre, and it also came recommended by our friend Dan who loves a good pub, so we knew we could trust his recommendation. It wasn’t far from the exhibition, so we headed there next. The barman was quite stern, but we found that in Belgium, a lot of the bar staff are that way - friendly enough, but extremely efficient and stand for no shit from anyone. We weren’t allowed to order at the bar (something we’re still getting our heads around, is that from one country to another, you either have to order at the bar or you have to wait at your table to be served - there’s no signs to tell you which, so you just have to choose one and hope for the best), so we sat down and ordered a Blond beer. 11%, this beer was! So it was basically wine. But my god, it was delicious! We had a second one then thought we’d better leave as we’d booked ourselves onto a tour of the Bewerey of De Halve Maan, another recommendation from my friend, Maggie.
The brewery tour was probably one of the highlights of our whole time in Bruges, made particularly enjoyable by our guide, Marie. She was so enthusiastic, excellent at English and had a great sense of humour. Her explanation of the brewing process was so easy to understand, and was fully engaging throughout. We walked up the brewery tower to the rooftop, stopping in each of the rooms where various parts of the process are carried out, and we finished in a room that projected the whole bottling process onto the floor and wall, while Marie stood to the side narrating it for us. We also learnt about the old methods of brewing compared to now, and learnt about the bottling plant that is 2km away and how that came to be. It was so interesting, and I’d recommend this to anyone visiting Bruges. We finished the tour and redeemed our free beer, which is actually unfiltered, as the beer served on tap here has not been transported to the bottling plant - it comes directly from the brewery. It was delightful!
Time had run away from us, and we realised that we had 15 minutes to do the 17 minute walk to our next destination, which was a Jazz bar where we’d reserved a table for dinner in front of a live Jazz band. Well, we necked our beers and hot-footed it across town. We also had to withdraw some money, as the entrance fee was €7.50 each whenever there’s a band on. We got there only 5 minutes late, but already the place had filled up and we were taken to a table around the corner where we couldn’t see the band. The waiter still expected us to pay to see the band, despite not being able to, and they were playing a dodgy cover of Highway to Hell, which is categorically not Jazz. Anyway, we’d read the reviews about the food and it wasn’t that highly rated - we really only wanted to go so we could enjoy a meal and watch some Jazz, but anyway, it wasn’t meant to be, and with that, we took ourselves to another of Maggie’s recommended bars, ‘t Brugs Beertje. We played a couple of games of chess and enjoyed some beer and a cheese platter here, in the cosy back-room amongst the bustling crowd. We bid our final farewells to Bruges and did the half an hour walk back to the van one last time before waking up in the morning and driving to our next stop - Ghent!
