Bruges, Belgium

Mark & Annette’s Travels 🧳

To say that a place has captured your heart is an overused statement by so many, so I will not say it, even though Bruges truly has. Annette & I fell in love with travel to Europe after our first European trip in 2018 when we stayed in the Netherlands, before our Baltic cruise. Bruges is very similar to Haarlem in architecture and even the Flemish Language is very similar to Dutch. The people are just as friendly and open.

We landed in Brussels and took a train directly from the airport to Bruges. We asked a friendly person at the airport who gladly helped us find the correct train, travel is so easy here since there really is no language barrier. We were fortunate that we were able to drop off our bags at our Air BnB and get out to explore and force ourselves to stay awake after not much sleep on the flight.

Our first stop was to eat and we both had Flemish stew from Mozarthuys, a very comforting place nicely decorated with red checkered table cloths. The stew with Belgian frites was a great comfort food to start our food tour.

We explored and found several places we wanted to visit, Saint John’s Hospital an 11th century hospital that is now a museum with early Flemish paintings by Hans Memling, St John Alter-piece a triptych is stunning and amazing to see in person. Annette’s passion for art has certainly spilled over to me, I truly appreciate the work that is put into such beautiful work.

Of course cathedrals were high on our list, they always are, they are awe inspiring and beautiful with so much art and history in each one. We visited Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur de Bruges and Onze Lieve Vrouw kerk (church of Our Lady) which has the tombs of Charles the Bold Duke of Burgundy and his daughter Mary of Burgundy.

The Belfry of Bruges, Market Square (Grote Markt) Vismarkt (fish market) and Rosary Quay which arguably the most photographed area of Bruges were visited.

Of course a visit to Belgium is not complete without buying chocolate. Annette found a fantastic shop Dumon which we both loved.

After a a bit more walking I got to the place that I could not keep going, I had reached my point of exhaustion and needed to go to sleep. We got back to our Air BnB by 17:30 and I did my best to stay awake until 19:00 which I am proud to say I did.

Our Air BnB in Bruges was in such a good location right next to the old Vismarkt (fish market) and just a few minutes walk to just about anyplace of interest in Bruges.

We slept well and dreamed of exploring the city even more the next day!

Love to all,