Belgium
July 22-25
Ben and Brenna in Bruges/Brugge
Belgium is awesome since the names of the cities we visited start with our favorite letter: B (it is also awesome for different reasons). After a final breakfast in Holland we took the train down to Brussels and then transferred to a train to take us to Bruges. We checked into our new place and our excitement lead to us to explore immediately. We walked down the road towards the town center and almost instantly found ourselves in a beer tasting at the local beer museum which was awesome. We saw tons of chocolate shops and the town square with the famous Belfry is so close to where we were staying. We walked around the town seeing tons of cool antiques to bring back (mostly related to chocolate and beer). We had to get a Kwak before dinner so that was a priority. They came in the classic Kwak glasses and tasted excellent. We moved along to dinner which we went back to the main square for. Ben got Flemish stew and Brenna a chicken pastry dish which looked excellent. Of course afterwards we had to get a waffle for dessert. The waffle was in fact too good.
The next morning started exactly how the night ended the night before: with a waffle. We got waffles on a stick this time and coffee which we planned to walk and eat but it was nearly impossible with the messiness level. We stopped and consumed and then we set out to a brewery across town that we had made an appointment to tour. Brenna’s parents had toured this exact brewery some 16 years ago so it was a bit of a intergenerational tour situation. Our guide was super cool we got a great view of the city from the roof which was awesome. The best tour fact was that there is a beer pipeline that runs underneath the city of Bruges from this brewery to a bottling facility across town. The stairs in the brewery were interesting as some parts were so steep they could be considered more ladders than stairs. Nonetheless it was a great tour and we got to sample some beers afterwards. We had lunch at the brewery and weirdly spoke to a very strange person briefly (definitely Zot behavior). We walked around the city further and did a canal tour afterwards which was really cool. We went souvenir shopping and I think another couple of beers and waffles were involved in the evening but we wanted to depart early the next day for our last day in Europe so we packed up and prepared ourselves for our last hours in Belgium and Europe as a whole.
July 25-26
Brussels, Our Final Stop
We took an earlier train from Bruges to Brussels on the 25th as it is our final stop on the trip :(. We stopped for lunch on the walk from the station to our last Airbnb. Brenna got this interesting beer which tasted like peach juice and not actual beer. We walked past the main square on our way to our place which was beautiful. After dropping our stuff we walked around and found the Mannekin Pis statue: classic. We walked around further and found yet another peeing statue of a dog. We then encountered a cool looking church where we went inside to check out. Only fitting that on our last day we go in yet another church. The church was pretty big but we have seen bigger on our travels. We then meandered over to the canal in Brussels which was cool. After additional wandering we found some pretty tall buildings in the middle of the city that looked more modern than anything else. They had a nice park situated next to the buildings which looked like it held events and food vendors and such. We then made our way over to the Delirium Village which is an alleyway of Brussels with just Delirium Beer Houses and it was super cool. We ordered the beer meter which is a flight of 10 beers which was the entire draft list of the Delirium bar we were in. The lime beer they gave us was Ben’s favorite since he had never had anything like it and the cherry Lambic beer was Brenna’s favorite to no one’s surprise. We then found ourselves at dinner pretty close by in another side street situation taking our last food photos of the trip :(. We went back to the delirium village after dinner and got a beer but then took it to the tequila bar where the soup of the day was tequila! We walked down the rest of the Delirium Village that we hadn’t seen before and found our third peeing statue of the day. We eventually departed and left to go back to our place, passing through the main square one last time admiring the buildings now all lit up.
That pretty sums up the trip. Our flight the next morning had some delays due to mechanical reasons and we saw someone working on the wing which is always a good sign. Nevertheless we got back to New Jersey safely. The trip was a wild success, one that we could not have predicted to have gone so smoothly. We for sure thought at some point something radical like missing a major train or flight would occur but Ben is pretty good a keeping on top of the logistical aspects of the trip. We saw a ton of stuff that we hadn’t seen before and feel very thankful to have the opportunity to do this trip. Just being able to wake up and explore and figure out where you want to go and what you want to see is the best. We really have no bad things to say about the trip, it went fantastic and the teamwork between the two of us was superb which made this trip incredible. We really look forward to doing more trips in the future and we hope that this blog has brought smiles to our family and friends who like to know what we’re up to.
Thanks for Reading!
Ben & Brenna
