In deciding whether to do Bruges, Gant, or Bruges & Gant, I discovered that Bruges had just opened up an exhibit of ice sculptures. They also had three freshly-opened christmas markets. Awesome. Also, it's further, so we took advantage of weekend discounts -- about 28 euros for the both of us, there and back (normally it's twice that). As a snack at the station, we had a packaged toffee waffle (pretty good, actually) and I got an espresso (mmm coffee).
Bruges/ Brügge is in the Flanders region of Belgium, where if you don't speak Dutch it is preferable to speak English over French. My understanding is that the Flemish(who often speak Dutch, French and English) hate the Frenchy-Belgians/Wallonians (who speak French and occasionally English). Case in point: the Flemish threw all the Frenchy Belgians out of the university of Leuvan, and the Wallonians/Frenchy-Belgians founded their own frenchy university of Leuvain-la-Neuve. The library is split exactly in half (each library got every other book)-- there's a three-volume set of books (witten & someone) where one university has vol 2 and the other has vol 1 and 3.
Back to Bruges. Getting off the train put us right at the ice sculpture park. The ice sculptures had the theme 'ice age 3', with a whole section to the side honoring Darwin (Darwin statue, and ice sculpture of his library). It was quite cold (-6 C), and pretty neat. Found out from the brochure that the clearness/cloudiness of the ice depends on the content of air in the water. Followed the chill with some nice Glühwein.
We then walked towards the city center, moving from square to square and wandering around the various christmas markets. As Will said, isn't this just the most picturesque town? [It really is] Apparently lots of British tourists, due to the movie 'In Bruges'.
Ate a very nice lunch of mussels w/cheese (mussels are another regional dish), rabbit and chocolate mousse as well as a Bruges beer, the Bruges Zot. We also got tiny glasses of Kir, each with an ice-cube. While eating, it started to rain quite seriously, then hail, then rain some more, big rolling sheets and strong wind blowing the tourists off of the ice rink and into adjacent buildings.
When the weather cleared up, a parade of St Nicholas came by. Yet another moment of 'really? I guess I *am* in Europe' happened, when I looked down to see St Nick accompanied by a group of helpers in blackface. [I have pictures]
Seriously, Belgium. Seriously?
More wandering and a ride back to Brussels. Dinner was some really tasty coconut-chicken soup and some ok red curry from the thai place around the corner, proceeded by some Cantillon Krieck.
Going to Ghent/Gant tomorrow. I enjoy this blurb:
"Ghent is a small city with 297 bars, 50.000 students, an alive music scene with free concerts every day, good secondhand shopping, very relaxed natives and almost no cannibals. The city lies between Bruges and Brussels, and that's also what it feels like: you get a romantic setting with pretty medieval buildings (like Bruges) mixed up with a living nightlife (like Brussels)."
vaarwel!
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