Cyndi and I got a late start, but eventually set out for Bruges. We caught the metro to Central Station and picked up a waffle before we hopped on the train. The waffles in Belgium deserve their reputation. Just a plain hot waffle from a subway vendor is better than any waffles I’ve ever had anywhere else!

It was an hour-long ride to Bruges from Brussels. When we arrived at the train station, we started walking towards the town. Cyndi and Gil had done a walking tour when they were there which came in very handy since she remembered a lot of trivia and had dropped pins on her map for some of the most interesting sites. It was very close to lunchtime so we found a cafe first and ate lunch while we planned our itinerary for the day. The first stop was the Frites Museum. The best part of the Frites Museum was the fun facts!

Hussy potatoes!

We enjoyed learning more about potatoes.

My first job was working at Hardee’s so I guess this was a bit like riding a bike?

And of course the instagrammable photo ops!

We love frites!

The next stop we made was the Choco Story Museum, a museum dedicated to chocolate!

Tasting what chocolate was like before anyone thought to add the good stuff, like sugar. 

There were lots of interesting facts.

Oh England!

And of course photo opportunities…

Conquistadors encountering chocolate don’t look as excited as I would have been.

When we left there, Cyndi showed me a lot of placed from In Bruges she had learned about on her first trip.

Movie sites and other places of interest

On the way we decided to stop for a drink, because it is important to stay hydrated.

We stopped at Cafe Vlissinghe, the oldest continuously operating pub in existence. I had a hot chocolate with rum. I can see why their business model has stood the test of time.

Eventually we walked to the windmills that sat by the canals.

We arrived just in time to see the drawbridge open

From there we walked back to the city center to do a little souvenir shopping before heading home.

Doors of Bruges

Since our trip to Ghent had been cut short and we didn’t visit any candy shops there, we were really excited to find that they had the famous Ghent candy, little noses in Bruges!

A super helpful Belgian woman explained to me that these were the best candies in the world. I tried them and I can verify that she was absolutely right.

We bought a few more trinkets and then walked back to the train station. We got a little turned around and ended up taking the long way, which worked out very well when we accidentally found ourselves in a street art tunnel that led to the train station.

Streetart in Bruges

“It’s a fairytale town, isn’t it? How’s a fairytale town not somebody’s fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody’s fucking thing, eh?” – Harry, In Bruges