SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 2012

Bruges, Belgium

The end of our first long day of travel! The trip from Charlotte to Philadelphia to Brussels was great. We had a strong tail wind and arrived 30 minutes early in Philadelphia and over an hour early in Brussels. David and I were the first of our group to arrive and easily made our way through customs and baggage claim. We found the Java Hut and I had coffee and David had hot chocolate.

Linda and Sandy arrived about an hour after we did and they had no problem with their flights either. Sheryl, Sue (Sheryl's sister), Carol and Diane had a little issue. Their planes to JFK had mechanical issues but they were able to get flights to Laguardia airport and then took a taxi to JFK to board their flight to Brussels. Just a little stressful glitch! They arrived about 30 minutes after Linda and Sandy.

We easily found our way to the train station, one level down from baggage claim, and bought our train tickets to Bruges, Belgium. The tickets cost about $21.00 a piece. We rode to Brussels-Midi and had to change trains there. It was a bit of a goat rope as David would say because no one, even the train station official, knew which track the train to Bruges was going to leave from. After some marching around the station, we finally got to the right track. The trip from Brussels to Bruges only took about one hour.

We arrived at the Bruges train station and decided to take taxis to our hotel rather than hauling our luggage a mile or so on cobble stone streets. This was interesting: David, Sheryl and I took one taxi and it cost 11 euro. The other group of 5 people took a separate taxi and it cost them 8 euro. Go figure! Our hotel is the Heritage Hotel which was built in 1390 and housed businesses and families until the 1900s when it became a bank. For the last 20 years or so it has been 4-star boutique hotel with 24 rooms. Claudia checked us in and upgraded all of our rooms to superior rooms. They are typically European -- a little small but very charming! Each room has an IPad for the guests to use and free wireless internet. Nice bonus but, of course, I have an IPad 2 so I do not need to use it. That comment was for Kema and Steve. We were able to check in but our rooms were not ready. We stored our luggage and headed out for a little sight-seeing and chocolate-buying.

When Sheryl and I were here before, she knew about a wonderful chocolate shop called Dumon Chocolatier. We loved the Dumon chocolate so that was our very first stop today. Most of us bought some treats for sustenance! We strolled through the Market Square and headed to the Church of Our Lady to see Michaelangelo's Madonna and Child sculpted out of Carrara Marble. It is one of a very few of Michaelangelo's pieces to leave Italy. It was sculpted in 1504, bought by a Bruges' merchant and donated to the church in 1506. It is a gorgeous sculpture and it is hard to believe it is on display here in Bruges.

David and I were really tired so after that we walked back to the hotel to rest. The others stayed out and continued to sight-see and visit a few shops. I believe there was another chocolate purchase and I know several of them tried the frites from the vendor stand in the Market Square. David and I napped and a few the others did too and then we met for dinner at 5:00 p.m.

We decided to have an early dinner so we could all get to bed early and try to get our bodies on "Bruges time." At 5:00 all of us except Carol (she decided she would rather rest than eat dinner) gathered and headed out for an Italian restaurant recommended by Rick Steves. It did not open until 6:00 so we wandered around and did a little shopping waiting for it to open. But it never opened! Maybe it's closed on Sunday although there was no sign on the door. In our earlier wanderings we saw another Italian restaurant so we returned there and had a delicious meal. I'm sorry to say I do not remember the name of the restaurant but I will fill it in later. It was a very small restaurant with a huge menu. Two people had vegetarian lasagna. Sheryl and David had tagliatelle with mushrooms and cream sauce, Sue had four cheese penne pasta and I had salami and mozzarella calzone. All of us loved our dinners.

After dinner we strolled back to our hotel. We agreed to meet for breakfast tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. Until then, good night and love to all!