Brugge

Faced with a long bank holiday weekend, we decided to take a jaunt out of town on the Eurostar (thinking that going by train would be easier; forgetting that nothing is easy with two small children in tow). Earlier than I would have liked, we woke up and headed out to St. Pancras with our gigantic blue suitcase and all the gear involved  when you are traveling with two children.  Stroller, sling, backpack full of DVDs and DVD player (which we forgot to charge), books, Barbies, the all important Dou Dous in Muslin and Giraffe form, nappies and wipes and Kleenex. It was rush hour, but luckily on a Friday Londoners seem to go to work extra late, so the tube wasn’t too crowded and we didn't get any dirty looks or exasperated clucks for daring to enter with all of our space taking stuff. We did get some grumpy comments from an old man while we were shuffling along in the customs line.  We had the audacity to move forward in line, which put us in his way as he walked across all of the lines and for this he muttered in a posh voice, 'That's right, move right in the way.' If he hadn't been a centenarian and escorting an equally old and very sweet looking lady, I would have been really annoyed. And I hope he felt a little bad for being such a grump when we let them go in front of us.

On the Eurostar, we crammed into two seats, the girls riding free, but on our laps.  Lots of squirming and general unhappiness ensued and on a trip to the food car, Jim discovered four seats in a row, which were unoccupied and had a plug for the DVD.  Despite all of the modern technology, we still did a lot of chasing children around and it was a relief to finally get to Brussels, where we took a pit stop for lunch before hopping on our second train to Bruges.

Solemn girls under the Bruxelles Midi Sign:

Hooray for high speed trains (although that train ride felt eternal)!

The last time I was in Brussels was when I was fourteen and I don't remember much about it besides The Atomium (which we didn't see on this trip):

 

 From outside the train station, my impression was of an almost Eastern European city, with rough looking people and buildings being demolished. A 'claw' provided much entertainment as it pulled down a dilapidated building by the clawful.  But the people at the tourist trap restaurant were nice and, while not ebullient, were friendly enough and smiled through their cigarettes at the girls.  Everyone smokes excessively and there seems to be a mob presence.  As we pulled out of the train station, a  nuclear power plant dominated the horizon. But I'm sure there is much more to Brussels than what you can see from the train/train station, so we'll have to go back and visit to get a real sense of the city.

On the train to Brugge, the scenery alternated between industrial and farmland and then suburbia and farmland again.  Millie protested heartily against being made to stay in her stroller and a disapproving man gave me a disgusted look from a few seats away.  My tolerance for grumpy people and my ability to be sympathetic to their situation has drastically declined lately and London has made me harder and less accommodating.  Rudeness begets rudeness, I guess. So I just stared back at him and continued to ignore the outraged Millie, who finally fell asleep.

Brugge is a lot more bustling than I was expecting it to be and has a very university town feel to it. We walked out of the train station and through the beautiful Minnewater Park with bike and walking paths.  The girls ran along the canal and were happy to be free and able to run around outside of the train. Many of the benches in Brugge had dragons for legs, which they loved.

If we had been there a week earlier, the tulips would have been spectacular.  Even though they were a little past their prime, the flowers were really pretty and Evie, faced with a park full of flowers, went into Princess/Sound of Music mode.  Millie just tried to pick them all.

 

To get to our hotel, we had to pass through a monastery with signs requesting silence.  With a stroller and suitcase on cobblestones and two small children who don’t know the meaning of silence, we weren’t exactly able to follow the rules, but we did our best.

We crossed a canal, where the girls were mesmerized by the speedboats filled with people on canal tours.  There were also horses and carriages lined up to give tourists a ride.  And we passed many purveyors of Belgian waffles and chocolates.  There is definitely a more touristy area of town and it was a relief to find that we were staying on the outside of it.  

Evie was not a fan of these sculptures:

When we finally made it to our apartment, which was big with high ceilings and leather couches and way more space than we’re accustomed to, we were exhausted. Evie and Millie ran around, exploring and jumping on all the beds.  There was a huge bathtub in the master bedroom, which was wonderful to soak in after spending the last three and a half years in a house who’s tub is too small for me to enjoy.  That said, the lack of privacy offered by taking a bath in the middle of one’s bedroom is something I would have to get used to.  And I would, believe me!

Millie took in the living room scene:

 

And inspected the tub:

Evie approved of the bathroom, which provided a full length mirror in front of which one could perform dance moves:

And the bed was big and bouncy in their 'new' room.

A shag rug was the perfect place to collapse after lugging everything across Brugge.

After we rested and ate, we took the girls out for ice cream in Brugge's main square, which has a tall church and some slightly out of tune bells.  After some careful thought, Evie determined that she could walk up part of the tower, but ‘not SO much, Mama.’ I feel certain that both she AND Millie could probably walk the tower several times and still have way too much energy.

A forced picture in front of one of the canals:

Jan Van Eyck:

The main square in Brugge (where the movie took place). We never climbed the tower.

When we got home a tired Millie waited patiently for her bath in the giant tub:

Squeaky clean, happy girls in our 'new house.'

The next morning after breakfast, we headed out to the highly anticipated Chocolate Museum, which was, conveniently, across the street from our apartment.  There were French girl scouts in the square below us, singing songs and playing games and as eager as Evie was to get into the Chocolate Museum.  I think Evie had a vision of some sort of Willy Wonka style place, that was floor to ceiling chocolate.  In fact, the museum was full of artifacts from the history of chocolate making starting in the Aztec days, when chocolate was mixed with blood from human sacrifices and offered to the gods.  Surprisingly, the girls weren’t so interested in all that.  But we did force them to wander through all the history of Chocolate making, irritating the overwhelmingly senior museum visitors. 

Finally, we made it to the fun part, where the girls were faced with, among other things, a giant chocolate egg, a life sized chocolate statue of Barack Obama, A chocolate family, and some chocolate birds.  They also were able to sample chocolate made during a chocolate making demonstration, which was definitely the highlight of the visit. In a big kitchen behind the chocolate making demonstration, some school children were making their own chocolate.

Millie and Evie as cocoa beans:

With chocolate Barack Obama:

Free chocolate!  The look on Evie's face in this picture is also the face she makes when faced with birthday cake.

Lunch was at a brasserie, where we enjoyed frites with mayonnaise some Flemish stew and delicious applesauce.  Then we wandered through the streets of Brugge until we got to the green belt and historic windmills.  The greenbelt is a car free ring that goes almost all the way around Brugge and is full of cyclist and walkers and runners.  It’s always such a relief to get out of London and its high stress, high speed mentality.  Brugge, with its monasteries and cyclists and silent beautiful windmills and canals and cobbled streets seems like the perfect place to be with a family.

At the first windmill, Evie and I decided to climb the ladder and take a look around.  Halfway up it occurred to me that letting her climb 20 feet or so up the wooden ladder with no safety rails probably wasn't the smartest idea.  I felt my knees start to buckle and my heart race and wondered how we were going to get down.  Evie went up fearlessly ahead of me but as soon as she saw I was nervous, she got nervous, too. Inside the  windmill we practiced going down the inside ladder (less daunting than the one that went straight to the ground), but she refused to go down the outside ladder unless Jim, who is afraid of heights, came to get her.  So, in true Daddy rescue mode, he overcame his fear and rescued her from the windmill tower.  And after all that, she wanted to go up again!  Ugh. 

The view of a man climbing up the ladder, after Jim rescued us from the windmill. What was I thinking!!??

We visited the second windmill from the outside and bottom only, enjoying running up and down the hill .  We had lost one of Millie’s shoes on the walk over (found later), so she was confined to her sling, but before that she had been enjoying walking all over Brugges with much determination and spirit (shrieking like a banshee when forced to hold hands to cross the street or when one of us picked her up).   

After such an adventurous day, the only other thing to do was buy Belgian chocolate!  Evie picked out some chocolate lollipops for herself and then poor Millie screamed her head off until we managed to get someplace with a waffle (she doesn't like chocolate, but doesn't understand that she doesn't like chocolate, so she was FURIOUS when Evie got a treat and she didn't.  In retrospect, we should have withheld all treats until there was one for everyone. Live and learn.)

A famous Brugge arch:

And canal tour boats covered  after a long day:

Back at the home front the girls headed off for some shopping:

And fine dining:

Some Belgian food (not my cup of tea, with the exception of frites with mayo, which I could eat all day long):

On Sunday, we moved from our 'new house' to a 'NEW new house."  After Jim had packed and moved our stuff to our second apartment , which was around the corner, he and Evie headed out to rent bikes.  Once I got the hang of having Evie on the back of my bike, balance-wise, we had a great time riding along the bike paths that led along canals and through the country-side.  We stopped for a  picnic at a really old church and then for ice cream at a café.  The girls played with rocks and dirt and then clambered back on the bikes for more sightseeing.  We saw a beautiful old windmill at Damme and spotted lots of cows, pigs, horses, chickens, ducks and sheep along the way.  We fantasized about living in a place where we could ride our bikes everywhere without the fear of being hit by a car, where cars actually YIELD to bikes and everyone is courteous.

A house painted with The Smurfs (who were Belgian?)

Jim isn't really as portly as he looks in this picture. He had taken his sweater off to give it to Evie, who was complaining about being cold, but because it was not purple or pink she refused to wear it. So he put it back on over his jacket...which resulted in him looking pregnant.

A near catastrophe when Millie's Dou Dou went into Jim's bike chain!  Luckily he got it out and the chain back on, so we could continue our ride back to Brugge.

After our 25 mile bike ride, we ate pasta at an Italian restaurant, where all the Italians of Brugge were gathered for a celebration.  And after stuffing ourselves with pizza and pasta, we headed out on our bikes again, riding through the city and around the ring road, invoking the wrath of teenagers with our dinging bike bells (who knows what rude things they said in response. We don’t speak Flemish. Sometimes language barriers are a good thing!).

Sadly, we had to leave Brugge the next morning so we went our weary way with our gigantic suitcase, stroller, backpack and two small children.  We sat next to some friendly Australians on the packed train. Customs in London was ridiculous. We arrived back in London happy but worn out and we all want to go back to Brugge!