Since we were going to Holland, close to the Belgian border, I figured we should take a few days to visit Belgium. It was only 4 days, not enough, but then again, that's what we had. We started early on December 26th with a Thalys high speed train to Bruxelles and a connection to Bruges. We got there in only 2h20 or so.

first time I've seen X-Ray machines before boarding a train

Once in Bruges we went directly to our B&B (Saint Sauveur, Bruges), run by a super nice French lady who gave us loaner bikes so that we get around more quickly (mind you Bruges is very walkable, but bikes helped us get around a bit more quickly, especially when we went to the edge of town).
Most people do Bruges in 2-3 days, we did pretty much all of it in 26 hours :) (and that includes waiting for things that only opened at 10:00), delaying us quite a bit:

Saint Salvator Cathedral

Church of Our Lady

Then, we went to walk around:

We then did a boat tour, a good way to look around:

The main plaza was next, starting with Belfy Tower, which we climbed to the top after a 30mn wait in line:

music box for the bells

We then did the rest of the main plaza and the museum there:

Next, we went to the chocolate museum, where we had only 35mn before it closed (everything closes early):

We then went to visit the bruges story museum, which thankfully closed after 17:00, unlike everything else:

Main Plaza looks great at night too of course:

We then went out for dinner to conclude our day:

The next morning, we had to wait for museums to open. One of them opened at 09:30 instead of 10:00, how nice:

We then biked to the city gate:

And we finished our trip by visiting the French Fry Museum (which of course are not French, but Belgian):

We then had to pick up our rental car, and drive to our Dutch Family gathering.