Catering to Faults: Euro_Adventure - Bruges (Brugge) & Luxembourg

Bruges is a beautiful medieval city. It’s like a fairy tale village in the real world. Please go and spend a few days there, especially in the winter (less tourists so we were told).

We spend two days in Bruges, which was just enough to see everything. We got into Bruges in the afternoon and booked us a place to stay while at the train station. We found it and decided that perhaps we didn’t need the more expensive room that I had booked (room for 4 with a kitchen). The front desk people at our hotel were very nice and helped us change rooms at no extra cost. WE were placed in a much smaller room (similar to a rather large walk in closet) put our bags down and then went and explored the city.

It doesn’t take long to walk the length of Bruges, and every building there has it’s own history and character. We had fun looking at all the different architecture and walking along the little canals that crisscross the city. In the evening, Igor went for a run, while I stayed at home did some work, washed my clothes for the first time on the trip, and took a shower (not the first time on the trip, in case you were wondering).

We then went back out on the town and walked some more. We stopped in at a little Thai place sat down then subsequently got back up when Igor decided that he smelled too badly after his run to take off his jacket. We went back to our hotel, Igor showered, and then subsequently laid down with no intension of getting back up so I left (I won’t lie, in a bit of a huff) and walked around to try and find something to eat. (Note: almost everything in Belgium seems to close at 6 – 7 PM) Now 9PM it was difficult, even the pizza hut and McDonalds were closed. I eventually went into the overpriced, shwanky restaurant beneath our hotel and had the last meal of the evening by candle light. I even bought myself a beer since Belgium is supposed to have great ones (it tasted just as good as what we get at home, by the way, but it came in a cooler glass).

view from our hotel

City Square

full city square

because you have to have windmills when you are in Belgium

In the morning, we had a continental breakfast in the historical cellar of the hotel. They put on a great spread of food and we enjoyed it very much. Igor had been up rather early and asked the front desk if we could have a late check out since our train wasn’t until 2:00PM. They said fine so we were able to leave our bags in our room until it was time to go.

At 1:15PM we headed down to the train station to catch our train to Luxembourg (the country that is a city). We had one switch in Brussels which was not long enough to get off and explore the city, really just enough time to have a snack and find our next train, which is what we did.

On our train from Brussels to Luxembourg Igor started up a conversation with a very nice English couple behind us and we also stopped their tour guide to ask some questions about where they were from, etc. We had a wonderful time on the train with Malcolm and Lynn, talking about all sorts of things. When we got to Luxembourg we said our good byes before our train car lost power and we were stuck inside! Uh oh. Lol

We were able to get the attention of one of the train operators on the platform who opened the door for us, and we said goodbye again.

Our host in Luxembourg, named Yves, decided that he would come and pick us up from the train station, and so we waited out front as several homeless people attempted to ask us for money. They only seemed to speak French but I thought it best not to try to say no in French, as it might encourage them.

Once Yves arrived he took us to grab the local drink and to have a bit of dinner. He brought his house mate along Oscar, who had just moved a few weeks earlier to Luxembourg from Poland. We had Gruewein (spiced wine) and then went in for pizza. Once back to Yves, which is a nice, American style house just outside Luxembourg City, we stayed up for a bit with the guys and made planes for the next day with Yves.

In the morning Yves took us out to walk around the river that separate Luxembourg from its border with Germany where we were staying (Winchering) with his dogs Lucy and Dinna. As there wasn’t enough space in his car for all of us he let Igor drive his (automatic) Audi sports car! After about an hour walk we headed to the Winchering train station just down the hill from Yves’ to get our train tickets to Frankfurt for the following day.

Tickets all sorted, we went jumped back in the car and headed up the hill so that Yves could pick up his son and then we were off to Luxembourg City to spend the rest of the day.

Luxembourg is a little bit like Bruges with some new more modern buildings through up right next door. You sort of have to look more closely to notice where the blends from one architecture style to the other are. We played around on the jungle gym walked the old city wall and got some hot chocolate and food.

After a long day we headed back to Yves’s home and had a lovely spaghetti home-made dinner with some nice California wine that Oscar had bought on his way home from work. We stayed up late discussing all sorts of topics and then finally headed off to sleep, as Igor and my train was to leave at about 11:00 the next morning.