Brugge or Bruges - beautiful and tasty

Belgium - home of chocolate, waffles, and fries. This was a yummy destination. It was also a beautiful one. 

In the past few days, I have tried using subheadings to divide up my obscenely long posts. Have you noticed? If you haven't, you will now because there are a LOT of pictures of Brugge. Oh, beautiful Brugge! -or Bruges...

Around town

Brugge (Bruges in English) was so beautiful. The buildings were fun and unique. We walked around quite a bit. Check out what we saw:

The Markt was almost my favorite part. I loved the facades of the small stores as well as the architecture of the huge city/historical buildings. This is the Provincial Court with a horse and buggy in the foreground:

This is the Belfry which has been around since 1240. We climbed to the top to see the city. You can see the photos from that later on in this post:

Last picture of the Markt, this is a statue of Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck, well-loved Flemish patriots. I am completely in love with the buildings on this side of the square:

City Hall in Burg Square - there were a lot of horse-drawn carriages in Brugge:

The next five photos were taken in the courtyard of the Church of Our Lady:

My children... so dramatic... so fun!

Climbing yet another tower

We've definitely done our share of climbing towers since we've lived in Europe, but I think this one takes the cake. I was terrified that Erick was going to drop David as he carried him up and then back down the 366 steps. Did I mention that the steps were very narrow and that people were coming down as we were going up and vice versa? We literally had to squeeze against the wall to let people pass. Scary stuff with little ones:

Waiting for our turn to climb:

The city of Brugge- or Bruges - kept all of their charters and treaties locked into this chest and locked behind iron gates. The only way to open this chest was to have three keys, one key from the mayor, one from the head of the church, and another from an important official - I can't remember who the third guy was or any of the details now, but I thought it was interesting all the same:

Up in the bell tower, this is the mechanism to play the music we hear around the square:

Views from the top:

Oh, the food!

Waffles taste better in Belgium. Really!

See the scary fish creatures? They are entirely made of chocolate:

Everything in this picture is also made of chocolate - thank goodness!

Here we are looking at ourselves in a chocolate store. We tried LOTS of different chocolate varieties. I think Belgian Chocolate tastes better in Belgium. Yum!

Boat tour - my favorite!

Remember forever ago when I wrote that the Markt was almost my favorite part of the day? Well this was my actual favorite part. This view of the canal is the most photographed in all of Brugge. Can you see why? The belfry in the background, the historic brick buildings, the water... everything!

David, waiting to board the boat:

I have the cutest kids....

...and the cutest husband... I know I'm biased, but don't you just want to squeeze him? Maybe that's my end-of-deployment-never-let-him-out-of-my-sight-again self talking:

There's another angle of that same over-photographed view:

Along the river:

That's the end. Finally. If you ever get the chance to visit Brugge or Bruges, do it. You will not regret it a bit. Better yet, come visit me and take me to Brugge or Bruges with you. I'd love to go again!