This place is kind of magical! It's beautiful, but it smells like a sewer (sometimes). It's super crowded on one street (worse than Amsterdam while we were there), but quiet and quaint on the next.
Today we were planning on taking it easy and just grabbing some dinner, but it turned out that we got quite a bit done. We walked around and familiarized ourselves with the area first off. When we stumbled upon a river tour we decided to go for it even though it wasn't the plan -- and after 30 min of searching for an ATM, we actually got on the boat.
The highlights of the tour were twofold: 1.) catching a glimpse of the adorable dog in the window from the movie "In Bruges" -- which is the same dog everyone sees on the river tour (it's crazy how famous this dog is), and 2.) seeing a hospital from the 12th century that was operating through the 1970s...for real.
Everywhere you turn is another gorgeous piece of history, and then you turn 180 degrees and grab some beer or a waffle to enjoy the scene.
After the tour, we stumbled (we had a couple belgian beers immediately after the tour) over to Wal Plein and had a really fantastic dinner outside on a cobblestone street corner while horse drawn carriages occasionally passed. It's like a damn fairy tale here.
After dinner we were in for a surprise treat. There was actually a marching band show around the corner from our hotel! Two from the netherlands, one from Belgium, and one from the UK. We couldn't believe it! We didn't have tickets, but we hung out and listened in the back of the crowds. I couldn't be at the Lynn DCI Show -- but I guess I can settle for European marching bands in Bruges.
We also got Belgian waffels IN BELGIUM. check THAT off the bucket list!
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now -- check out some pictures.
