Beautiful Bruge

You have just got to visit Bruge; it is beautiful. The old city is made more attractive because of the meandering canals and the old stonework. We took a small river cruise to get a sense of the place and to get away from the hordes of tourists in tour groups. Some of the buildings dated back to 1600s and there were 14 catholic churches in the old city alone. We met a couple from the champagne region and chatted away, getting their tips for places to visit. One of the places was Damme, a quaint place with a pub a church and some restaurants. Apparently, this small place still earns the right to call itself a city which makes the locals proud. In Bruge we spent the morning wandering in and out of shops and churches and along cobbled streets before heading off to Sluis in Holland; where the Belgians go shopping.  I was interested in finding tulips! Unfortunately, they were a further 200kms away and no one else in our car cared about the tulips so I had to make do with the few scattered in gardens around Sluis. Sluis is a very pretty place with a windmill and a canal that you can boat on should you choose.  The sunny weather made all the difference to our mood and to the way everything looked.  Eventually, we made our way to Damme to discover the couple from the morning having a beer. We ended up dining with them in a posh restaurant; Terry in his jandals and long pants and me in my sundress and black sandals. What a combination but they didn’t question it. I had a tagliatelle (hmmm) with shitake mushrooms and thoroughly enjoyed the flavours. A rose washed it all down and then a coffee after that. Perfect.

Our second day in Belgium was for the girls and so we headed off to a science exhibition they had seen advertised. There were earthquake exhibits and tornado, volcano and …. It was okay but perhaps a bit tired. More entertaining was Sealife where they could watch a seal show and look at many fish species including sharks, huge crabs, stingray, turtles. They also had otters and penguins! The local supermarket was a great find with Cumin cheese at 2.58 euro for 500grams! Grace was excited by that. We were excited by the port at 4.99 euro. We may not be when we drink it! So after grabbing bread, cheese, choc biscuits, pasta, tomatoes, juice, we headed home for dinner and internet and packing. Hardly exciting but necessary.

Belgium and Holland countryside looked very much like New Zealand. Lots of long grass, some cows but not many, four sheep, two cats and 10,000 dogs. Everyone has a dog accessory. Many of the dogs are little and fit under your arm or in your bag. One couple yesterday had their pooch in a pushchair! I kid you not. The locals wear bright clothing, like ‘out there’ green and screaming pink. Quite nice to see when the weather was dreary. We are heading to floods and rain in the U.K and common sense tells us to turn the car around and go to Spain. Sigh!