To Dali in Bruges

August 30th we decided to day-trip to Bruges from Ghent to see if Bruges was worthy of its reputation (and hotel prices). We grabbed the tram to main train station, got to our platform, and then got a sobering reminder that trains are dangerous.

Upon arriving in Bruges we found we were to follow the grey brick road to the center of town.

Like all Belgian towns it has things with towers around the vicinity of a square.

In a nifty building beneath a nifty building we found an exhibit that purported to have many Picasso drawings.

It had Mr Owl. Mr Owl is not a Picasso.

The master did however do this.

Overall it rated a solid "OK".

Much like Ghent, Bruges has canals. Just ones that are more crowded. Also their horse and carriage rides appear to go much faster, possibly because being bigger there is in fact more to see.

The market by canalside was quite charming.

Casa Patata celebrates the potato in all it's forms. Deep fried with mayo, ketchup, curry ketchup, or even beef stew broth on top.

A nice place to eat fries.

The most mobile waffle shop of all?

You can climb this.

Near the climbable there is a Dali exhibit.

His works are certainly striking.

One of the best sequences was Alice in Wonderland.

After Dali we climbed the climbable. From the top of the climbable you can see other things you'd like to climb.

And get a new look angle on the ever-awesome facades.

They look good from the ground too.

After our climb and exciting descent complete with trying to edge past others trying to ascend the narrow winding stairs, we stopped at an Irish pub to write cards.

Then it was time to explore again. Ideally we hoped to see cool things and somewhere with non-ludicrous food prices. Given the volume of tourists we were beginning to suspect this wouldn't happen until we got back to Ghent.

It is awesome just wandering the streets.

We did eventually find food. Spaghetti carbonara is always good for a relatively cheap and satisfying meal. The sun was beginning to dip by the time we headed out so we started heading vaguely trainward.

Along the way we found something wonderful.

Train travel is best with a good supply of Belgian chocolate.

Farewell Bruges. Bruges was nice but forced to pick one we concluded we'd prefer Ghent. Daytripping to Bruges from Ghent works rather well if you have an open railpass though.