Brugge, Day Two
Our room included breakfast, so we started our first morning in Brugge downstairs. We served ourselves from selections of coffee, juices, cheeses, sliced meats, croissants and rolls, yogurt and fruit. Afterward we headed back to the Christmas village.
We saw some horse-drawn carriages offering tours and, on a whim, decided to hire one. We got a half-hour tour of central city highlights. Brugge's centre is formed by a canal that doesn't so much ring the city as spiral into it.
After the tour, we found one of the nearby streets we'd gone down earlier because it had some shops we were interested in. We started in a chocolatier, getting a box of a variety of smaller chocolates, plus a chocolate Santa for Sarah. A music store had Hooverphonic's new collection of singles, but I held off since I had half of them already. Their first three albums are available easily, but not their more recent ones, which were my true target. Margo had her eye on lace, and ended up buying a tablecloth with a heart-of-Brugge pattern.
We explored some other shopping streets. One square featured some kids' rides, and what cold-hearted brute would deny our little one such a small pleasure on Christmas? Me, that's who, but Margo was there, so we sprung for a ride.
Being Christmas Eve, we anticipated many restaurants being closed for the day as well as the next, so we went to a deli and stocked up. Margo picked some sausages and cheeses whilst an assistant plied me with locally produced spirits. We ended up taking home a bottle of Jenever, a corn-based drink similar to whisky, as well as a flavoured version supplemented with hazelnut and cream. I also picked five bottles of local ales including "Brugse Zot" (which the assistant told me meant something like "crazy man") which is made in a brewery a few blocks away.
Then it was back to our room to relax a bit. We were pleased to see we could get BBC 1 and 2 so I wouldn't miss the highly-anticipated Doctor Who Christmas special later that evening. We had dinner in a nearby brasserie then retired for an evening of the Doctor and, much later, the Little Britain special. Christmastime is a great time for telly in the UK.
We saw some horse-drawn carriages offering tours and, on a whim, decided to hire one. We got a half-hour tour of central city highlights. Brugge's centre is formed by a canal that doesn't so much ring the city as spiral into it.
After the tour, we found one of the nearby streets we'd gone down earlier because it had some shops we were interested in. We started in a chocolatier, getting a box of a variety of smaller chocolates, plus a chocolate Santa for Sarah. A music store had Hooverphonic's new collection of singles, but I held off since I had half of them already. Their first three albums are available easily, but not their more recent ones, which were my true target. Margo had her eye on lace, and ended up buying a tablecloth with a heart-of-Brugge pattern.
We explored some other shopping streets. One square featured some kids' rides, and what cold-hearted brute would deny our little one such a small pleasure on Christmas? Me, that's who, but Margo was there, so we sprung for a ride.
Being Christmas Eve, we anticipated many restaurants being closed for the day as well as the next, so we went to a deli and stocked up. Margo picked some sausages and cheeses whilst an assistant plied me with locally produced spirits. We ended up taking home a bottle of Jenever, a corn-based drink similar to whisky, as well as a flavoured version supplemented with hazelnut and cream. I also picked five bottles of local ales including "Brugse Zot" (which the assistant told me meant something like "crazy man") which is made in a brewery a few blocks away.
Then it was back to our room to relax a bit. We were pleased to see we could get BBC 1 and 2 so I wouldn't miss the highly-anticipated Doctor Who Christmas special later that evening. We had dinner in a nearby brasserie then retired for an evening of the Doctor and, much later, the Little Britain special. Christmastime is a great time for telly in the UK.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:51 pm
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