Bruges - Day 2

Another lovely day, how lucky we were with the weather. I went to the bread shop and took the opportunity to walk to the Markt whilst it was still quiet and take some pictures

so pleasant .......

However with things to do - have breakfast, and places to go - market day (hooray!) I didn't stay for long and we were soon enjoying croissants and coffee and deciding on our itinerary for the day. First stop would be the market and from there we would explore Bruges using the City Guide 2014. We packed a picnic and were off. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the market, the flowers were lovely but I didn't think there was a lot of 'foody' stalls. It was divided up into two parts, well three really as the fish market is in a different place altogether. The two parts that are near together consist of general - which is mainly clothes with some cheese, meat and bread stalls, and then down another street - Hauwerstraat - right at the bottom the flowers and vegetables. Also down there was a kind of market hall which on Saturday is bric-a-brac. Well you know how I like bric-a-brac, however on this occasion I refrained from going in mainly due to the cost, 4 euros and also because I knew we had no room to take anything back. But back to the flowers they were lovely, gorgeous colours just look

I have to say that my camera doesn't really do them justice, the colours were so vibrant. As we were leaving I saw these 

how lovely are they? I think that I could recreate something similar to maybe have as a table decoration at Easter - well we'll see.

Back in the area where the general goods we were alerted to the sound of loud music, a band appeared to be going from bar to bar, having a beer in each one then playing as they marched on to the next one

Crossing the road took us into the main market square where there were statues

buttons

tights

and many stalls selling clothes. Having decided we had seen enough we moved on and through the cobbled streets. I just loved the buildings and was constantly taking pictures.

the colours and textures of the bricks glowed in the sun

We ended up by one of the rivers that flow through Bruges, it reminded me of Amsterdam in some ways, Venice in others and of a lovely town in France that we have stayed at many times, Vendome. It was quite busy here with the bars and restaurants full of people lunching.

By this time we were ready for lunch ourselves so found a pleasant spot to have our picnic. Once finished we decided we would start to make our way back and came across 'the beer wall'. This was in a place called 2be bar. D was in his element, there were 500 beers displayed along a wall each beer having it's own glass

We made a mental note to come back during the evening for a drink, also noting that it closed at 7-30pm. Here it is at night

Really worth a visit and if you don't drink beer like me, then you can have a glass of wine. 

On our way back to the apartment we passed many chocolate shops and beer shops

We peered in at restaurants and looked at their menus in order to decide where we might eat the next evening, but there were so many it was going to be difficult to choose, that would be the most taxing decision we would have to make the next day.