The Eurostar took 2.5 hours from Waterloo to Brussels and then we took a local train to Bruges (about another hour). We arrived around 4pm and headed to our hotel - the De Barge - which was an actual barge on one of the canals. Very nice. We then walked into the city to look around and had a few beers at a great pub called De Garre, hidden away in one of the little alleys.
We woke the next morning to snow, which was very exciting for us, but then the sky turned clear and most of the snow melted. We headed off to the Ice Sculpting Festival which was indoors in what was basically a big refrigerator with the inside temp kept at a very chilly -5 degrees. We made a beeline for the ice bar for a warming vodka in a shot glass carved out of a chunk of ice (not sure about the look on my face here, but we're drinking vodka at 10.30am so maybe that has something to do with it...).
The theme for the festival was Ice Palace, so they had created a medieval style palace, totally in ice, complete with stocks -
Not sure how the slide fit with the theme...
We then went back to Markt Square to go ice skating however Nick refused to come so watched on the sidelines as I tried not to fall down. Note look of intense concentration on my face.
We also went to the Chocolate Museum (the best part of which was eating the samples at the end).
Bruges is extremely pretty and quaint and clean, which makes it feel quite magical (or, for the slightly more cynically-inclined, like a theme park or movie set). It's almost too charming. Every building or park or street is worthy of a picture. I took loads of photos, but here's just a few -
The next day we woke up to lots more snow. Again, very exciting for us Melbournians. Probably not so much for our friends from colder climates...
We took in the Groeningemuseum, and of course (it's Belgium after all) finished our trip to Bruges with the brewery tour at De Halve Maan. A highlight of the trip was some of the Belgian food/drinks we consumed, including the ubiquitous fries with mayonnaise, oliebollen (little donut things), waffles, chocolate, mussels and fries (the national dish), a potato/bacon/cheesy thing, and our favorite Belgian beer, Leffe.
A couple more photos -
Nick impersonating the freaky trees. Scarily faithful.
An ice rocking horse for my dad.
