Tuesday 12-08 - Brugges

We had planned to start out early before moving onto Brugges later in the day. We only got out late so didn't have a chance to do the things we wanted to in the morning. Wecouldnt go to the Bruseels comic museum,which is a same. It could have been a lot of fun.

We instead made our way straight to the train station and then to Brugges. We found a cheap group tcket there, thanks to the help of a very nice ticket wondow man. Waiting for the train we got coffee. There ate baguettes while we travelled.

Brugges is called Venice of the North and I can see why. There are tourist everywhere and its all quite Disneyland. But still nice. We followed a youth map around to the remnants of the old gate. A bronze skull hangs in place of the skull of the traitor that opened the gates there and let an enemy army inside the walls. Then we walked down to the main city.



We wondered down packed streets into a lane where we found a place called Bar Choc. They specialised in chocolate foods like pasta and chicken. We already ate so picked up a chocolate beer and white choc discs with coffee bits in them. The white choc with coffee waas nice.

Through Markt we went, the large and even more crowded main square. Nothing too special. Further up we sat to drink the beer. None of us had a bottle opener or anything that could act as one. We unsuccessfully tried using the bench until a nice older Belgian man lent us his opener. The beer was tasty and chocolatey.





Up to the frites museum. A museum solely about potatoes and fries. We were very excited. The first level and a half was about potatoes. Just potatoes. The history of potatoes and family differences. The domestication of the potato. None too interesting,a bit, but moistly in a fun, ironic way.



We laughed as we went through. The upper level was finally about the invention of the Belgian potato chip. Only called French apparently because an American soldier in a war thought a French speaking Belgian was French.

We went down to their frites shop. They claimed to make the tastiest in the world. They were ok, pretty good I guess. We stayed for a while working through the enormous packs of frites and talking about old pop songs.

We were tired by then. We wondered sloiwly back to the train station. As we did we popped into candy stores. There were streets lined with shops alternating between candy, beer and chocolate. Which is all good, I love all three.

Then to the station. It was good to be going back to Brussels. Plus by now we were all getting very excited. The next day we would be on our way to Hasselt for the 3 day camping music festival spectacular that is Pukkelpop. We had booked our tickets months and months in advance and now the time was finally apon us.

Back in Brussels the hostel had received a note from the post office for Dani to pick up her express envelope with her ID for the festival. Just in time. We headed to the super mark across the street where we picked up several different brands and types of kriek cherry beer. We heated some none too tasty canned canneloni for dinner. Then lined up all the cans and bottles of kriek in a row. We had all except the Lindermans we had the first day. One by one we drank them.



They verdict: Lindermans was the best by far, then Mort Subite extreme then Belle Vue extra,then Timms and Mort Subite regular, then regular Belle Vue and lastly St Louis. We talked to the festival going Australians again and then went to bed.