Castles, chocolate and ‘fairytale stuff’

I arrive in Bruges late evening after a long day of travelling. I venture out for dinner and end up combining two of Belgium’s most known delicacies, waffles and chocolate… healthy eating can wait.

The town itself is beautiful. It’s old and quaint and has a medieval feel, with its cobblestone streets and colourful buildings, although in reality most of the buildings only date back to the 16th/17th century but were built in a Neogothic style which has managed to preserve Bruges’ medieval feel. It’s led to a pretty, little city which could easily be the setting for a Disney movie. The city alone has 50 castles within its borders. It’s a beautiful little place to get lost in outside of the main tourist drag.

The touristy bit centred around two main squares, the Markt (or Market in English) and ‘De Burg’ which houses an old court house and the Basilica of the Holy Blood which holds a relic of (surprise, surprise) the holy blood, allegedly collected by Joseph of Arimathea.
The tourist centre of Bruges is busy, with more English accents than anything else. It’s an assault on the senses as the smell of chocolate wafts from shops left and right, luring you in, until a horse drawn carriage passes by and the smell of dung hits wakes you rudely from the chocolate based fantasy. Horsey smells aside, Bruges quickly charms me and I spend much of the time just walking around, taking it all in and practising my Dutch.

Belgium has 3 official languages, Dutch (technically Flemish), French and German in that order. Apparently my Dutch passes for Belgian as people respond to me in fluent Flemish to which I’m at a total loss with. In the Netherlands everyone just responds in English 🤷🏻‍♀️

From Bruges it’s on to Ghent which seems to be a more functional city despite its medieval flourishes. I take in castles and more of Belgium’s quaint antiquated buildings before realising that I need to do some admin. The woman at my hostel reception informs me that there’s a laundrette with an inbuilt bar just round the corner called ‘Wasbar’ and I’m instantly sold. Clothes in the machine and drink in hand I relax for a little while before commandeering a dryer. Two hours later and my clothes still aren’t dry. I throw them in again and take a wander round to my hostel where one of the girls in my dorm warns me not to expect much from the Wasbar dryer.

I catch up with editing and planning and a few hours later I settle into my bunk, close my eyes and try to ignore the forest of wet clothes hanging on the slats of the bed above me…. Wasbar strikes again!Read more