Bruges - Day 3

Another glorious day, so where would our walking take us today?. Well we decided to walk to far edges of Bruges and along the Vesten canal taking in the windmills, the oldest cafe/tavern in city, the chocolate museum and many more of the cobbled streets and alleyways.

We started off at the chocolate museum and resisted the temptation to go in walking passed and coming

quite quickly to one of the rivers, which we followed till it joined the canal. 

Here are some of the buildings we saw on our way

how blue is that sky?

We finally got to the canal and caught our first glimpse of the one of the four windmills which stand along the path next to the canal

We walked right along the path to a point called Kruispoort, which is one of the entrances over the canal into Bruges

From there we made our way back into the centre, diverting off to look at the oldest cafe/tavern in Bruges

I loved the crate strapped onto the front of the bicycle

It's quite amazing where you come out going up and down alleyways and we found ourselves back on the street where 2be bar was, which also meant we were near a cafe selling waffles and the one thing I wanted to have was a waffle. It was yum, which is more that can be said of the coffee I got with it. That was the 3rd cup I had had out during the weekend and none were very good, not even the one I had from the coffee shop ( like Pollards). They use sterilised milk which I don't like, having said that if the coffee had any flavour then it would overpower taste of the milk. Anyway enough about coffee, I'll just stick to wine next time! Once we moved ourselves out of the cafe we had another look at the restaurants and decided on one called Arthies, do look here as they have some lovely pics which we weren't able to get. The reason (and I have to take full responsibility here) I chose it was because of the tablecloths that I could see through the window, really bright and cheerful, you'll see them and the rest of the decor by clicking on the link. Luckily for me the food was very nice although service was a little slow for us - not that I want to be rushed but the main courses could have arrived a little quicker. Here are a couple of pics we did take

The decor was a real mix of all sorts of random things, from flip flops on the wall to coloured pigs and chickens all over the place. 

I've now got a little out of sync, in that before we ate we went into a beer bar just along from the apartment called Cambrinus. 

Each time we walked passed D had looked in and I knew that he was hankering after getting in there. It didn't disappoint, it was busy and lively and we almost stayed to eat there but as most tables were taken and some reserved we thought we might have quite a wait and we were hungry, another time maybe. 

We walked back after our meal, quite sad that our weekend was coming to an end but we knew we would still have time in the morning to do some more exploring before we got the train.

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.