I forgot how much I missed European rail service. It’s unreal how effortlessly you can get most places a visitor would ever need to go. Today, we hopped a train from Brussels to Bruges, less than an hour away (but a world apart).
Noe’s first train ride!
Diaper change on the mainline!
Noe thinks Belgium is nice and all, but his heart is elsewhere…
The whole of the center of Bruges is, yep, you guessed it, a UNESCO World Heritage site. If you’ve been following us for a while, you know our feelings on UNESCO sites. One of the cities often referred to as the “Venice of the North,” Bruges has quite a few canals and feels more like a small town than a city of 117,000. Historically, Bruges has held great economic importance and was at one time considered the most significant commercial city in the world.
Today, Bruges is likely know more for its beer than its economic significance, and we did our best to make sure that point didn’t go unnoticed.
Bruges Zot beer at Halve Maan Brewery, the only brewery still operational in the city center today — and you can smell it from a mile away. In fact, the whole city smells of the unmistakable aroma of beer brewing. Heavenly.
I got the Dubbel and Lori got the Blonde. No Tripels or Quads today. Still working on Portland time and don’t need any more help falling asleep.
Oh, did I mention we ordered salami. Not just any salami, potentially the most incredible salami I’ve ever had the privilege of snacking on.
Noe’s suspicions were finally confirmed: “Ok, you guys have got some explaining to do. We are definitely not in Oregon anymore and those are definitely not IPAs.”
We had been in Belgium over 24 hours before we finally got some chocolate. Actually, that’s not entirely true — we were given Belgium Pralines on Brussels Air and saved one for our arrival. But Bruges was the first place we had proper chocolate.
The main reason for delaying our chocolate experience in Bruges was a fussy Noe. Suffice it to say that the previous night had not been a fun one. Noe did awesome on the flights over, and we knew we’d pay for it later. The Mister was not keen on sleeping, and we didn’t blame him–we’re talking a nine hour time change after all and Noe had just gotten into a night/day rhythm back in the States. Lucky us.
Paid, and paid we did. Noe’s generally a very good baby, but from 8pm to 6am the dude did not want to sleep. Not only that, he was delirious and unconsolable. Let’s just say, we did not make any friends of our neighbors at the hotel.
The fussiness carried over into the next afternoon (Noe slept like a rock in the morning, of course–Oregon time, ya know), but by afternoon he was one unhappy camper. Lori said the second he calms down/ falls asleep, we’re celebrating with chocolate. A good while later, Lori finally got her chocolate.
Fabulous photos! Reminds me of the time I went to Bruges and then biked the autobahn to Zeebrugge to eat mussels on the beach and watch a professional sandcastle-making contest!
Looked like a lovely day! Hope Noe is less confused soon!