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.
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first time I've seen X-Ray machines before boarding a train
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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:
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Saint Salvator Cathedral
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Church of Our Lady
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Then, we went to walk around:
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We then did a boat tour, a good way to look around:
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The main plaza was next, starting with Belfy Tower, which we climbed to the top after a 30mn wait in line:
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music box for the bells
We then did the rest of the main plaza and the museum there:
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Next, we went to the chocolate museum, where we had only 35mn before it closed (everything closes early):
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We then went to visit the bruges story museum, which thankfully closed after 17:00, unlike everything else:
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Main Plaza looks great at night too of course:
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We then went out for dinner to conclude our day:
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The next morning, we had to wait for museums to open. One of them opened at 09:30 instead of 10:00, how nice:
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We then biked to the city gate:
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And we finished our trip by visiting the French Fry Museum (which of course are not French, but Belgian):
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We then had to pick up our rental car, and drive to our Dutch Family gathering.