Shelby's Travels

First full day in Brugges! We started off with a good tour / historical walking tour.

Stop 1: Hot chocolate – Belgium is #1 in the world for chocolate. Brugges specifically used to be known as a port and market town. Through all the importing of goods, they discovered chocolate from the Americas and Africa and fell in love with it. I can honestly say, that was the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. You have to oh the chocolate chips in the left bowl in the milk and mix yourself. Also served with a little praline – pralines were invented in Brugges.

Stop 2: Hazelnut chocolate from a local chocolatier

Stop 3: Top local brewery with their most popular Belgian ale

Stop 4: Belgian fries with stew sauce and bitterballen (meat/gravy in the middle)

Stop 5: Brugges waffle. These are more fluffy and sugary than the ones in Brussels

After our food tour we head to do a canal tour. Brugges doesn’t have nearly as many canals as Amsterdam. They are a town with 20,000 population and get 6-9 million tourists a year.

After talking with Peter (our boat guide) we offered to take him out for a beer… well Peter doesn’t drink so we went to dinner instead. Peter is 77 originally from Nottingham, England but moves to Brugges when he was 7. He speaks English, Dutch, German, and French. You could tell he was just such a kind soul and had so many stories to tell. He told us maybe 3 different times how touched he was that we invited him out. His wife passed of cancer 21 years ago when she 44. We heard the story of how they met and all about her! We learned about his farm he lives on that he bought with his wife. We heard about his many hobbies including leather craftsmanship, black smithing, cycling, wood working. And he also offered some additional history on the town .

We parted ways with Peter (a lovely person and story I will never forget. So fun!) and head for some drinks. Long story short is we got a few free shots and drank toooooo much 😅