When I grew up in the Netherlands, I thought nothing of it, but now, with Linda, I am seeing Europe “through her eyes”. In other words, I now “see” the details that surprise her, things that are “common” in Europe, but rarely seen in the US.

One such occasion happened to us while we were walking through the cobblestone streets of Bruges in Belgium.

We spotted these guys, paving sections of the street that had been opened up for some replacement of underground pipes. I had grown up seeing this all the time so thought little of it. To Linda however, it was “WOW! he is hand laying EVERY SINGLE paver”!

Check out the video on how he was going about it. Note that he was (on the fly) laying them in a pattern while at the same time, placing them so that the road section was slightly higher in the middle (to ensure water run-off). If you look carefully, you’ll see a string down the center of the road. That is the “high point” of the road and each side slopes slightly down from there. It was excellent to see him doing this so effortlessly.

Note that this happens ALL OVER places in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany etc. Not just in older parts of a town but even in new developments. There are different kinds (shapes) of cobblestones and they get laid in a variety of different kinds of patterns.

This is how they build streets, perhaps because the streets are (often) too narrow for large concrete trucks, perhaps it’s just how they like to do it.

Who knows, but it’s pretty cool..

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It did not disappoint.
Our AirBnB is right on the edge of the old town center and nothing is more than a 10 minute walk from our front door. Truly a case of “Location, location, location”! We have 4 nights there, which means 3, full, glorious days to explore this historic place. To give you some idea of old this place is, it was founded in the 9th century and gained “City” status in the 12th century!

Befor we go explore the town itself, we wanted to get a feel for the place with a boat ride through the canals. This is a great introduction to the town, especially informative thanks to the commentary from the guide. The 1 hour trip navigates through about 5 miles of canals (which is just a small portion of what is available in the city) and passes under a dozen or so old stone bridges. All along the way, the driver of the boat points out interesting spots and provides some info about it.

The rest of the day was spent just walking through the old, cobblestoned streets, marveling at the magnificent architecture of days gone by. The atmosphere is wonderful, relaxed, yet exciting, there are plenty of people about, yet not too crowded – all doing what we are doing. . . walking, looking, and generally being happy about being there.

During our wanderings, we make a mental list of things to do and see – naturally, they include everything that Belgium is famous for: Chocolate, Waffles and Beer – oh, and French Fries. Note that in an attempt to balance the diet out a bit, we also bought some Brussels Sprouts!

Chocolate – and a funny story

The next day we visit the Chocolate museum, yes, a museum dedicated to the history and art form of making chocolate. The tour tells you AAALLLLL about the cocoa beans, the history of how they arrived in Belgium, how they were processed etc. etc. A tad boring, because let’s face it, we just wanted the free chocolate. We got there eventually – free samples and a demonstration – yeah!

One interesting point to note is that the chocolate in Belgium is so good because of the high quality of the Belgian dairy products. Their milks and creams are world class and, added to their centuries old experience of making chocolate, it makes perfect sense.

The funny story here is the frequent talk about chocolate and “kinds of pralines”. This made perfect sense to me, but seemed to confuse Linda. We concluded that we were using the same word, but clearly had different understanding of things (this happens to us regularly as I grew up in the Netherlands and Linda is born and raised in California. We often have conversations about a topic, where neither seems to “get” what the other is talking about, yet the words we use are the same).

So it turns out this was another one of those situations. To Linda “Praline” is a “FLAVOR”, as in “Pralines and Cream” Ice Cream from Baskin Robbins, which, by the way, does not include chocolate. To me (and the folk in Belgium) a praline is a Chocolate filled with something Yummy (think of a box of See’s Candy). The stores are full of these “pralines” and each store makes their own versions. Consequently, every conceivable shape, color and filling is available. Once we realized we each had a different understanding of the word, it all made sense, but it sure had us confused there for a while.
However, misunderstanding or not, that did not get in the way of us eating chocolate – waaay too much of it.

We try a Belgian Waffle

After the chocolate museum, we wanted lunch and decided a waffle would be in order. We find a place that specializes in waffles and made a selection. Their offerings were quite widespread, sweet or savory, regular or crispy. We selected one that came with ice cream, hot chocolate fudge, whipped cream and strawberries. We decided to have one normal one and one crispy one so we could each have a half of both and compare. Just FYI, they were both divine, but we both felt the crispy one was slightly more “divinerer”.

Salvador Dali

One of Linda’s high school friends suggested we visit the Salvador Dali museum, right here in the middle of Bruges. So we did! It was a small museum, showing a private collection, but highly interesting nevertheless. We saw pieces that were a variation of his famous “melting clock” and more. Interesting to learn he not only did paintings, but sketched and sculpted too. He even meddled in cinematography and worked with Walt Disney on the Bambi movie.
We must say though, that he had a strange mind, some of his work was outright “bizarre”, but always creative, interesting and eccentric.

Beer, beer and more beer

Those that know us, know that neither of us is a beer drinker. That said, we heard SO much about Belgian Beer, that we felt we had to try some. Belgium is famous for their huge beer variety and many small boutique breweries. Two of those breweries were are located in Bruges, so we that is where we headed next. To our delight they offered a flight of beer with 6 different beers from their own brewery. We shared of course, both the beers and the huge (freshly baked) pretzel with mustard.
The 6 beers included a “fruity” flavored one, two dark beers, a semi dark and two “blond” beers. We did not care to much for the fruity flavor, the two blond ones were “OK”, but we really liked the dark beers. So much so, we later bought a dark beer at the supermarket to try in our room. Quite delicious!

Frites a.k.a French Fries

Last on our list is French Fries, or “Frites” as they are known here (you pronounce it as “freet”, with a silent “S”).
We saw a street vendor on the main Market Square that seemed to be very popular so went there and ordered a portion, with Mayonnaise, which is the Go-To dressing here in Belgium and the Netherlands. We think we may have had set our expectations too high, because, while very good, the fries were nothing we have not tasted before. Don’t get me wrong, they were awesome, but we realized we were expecting to taste something extra special, something that would blow our taste buds away, but did not have that experience. We DID enjoy the mayonnaise sauce though, creamy and quite a nice companion to the taste of the fries.

So, as we are sure you have realized by now, we have each gained about 50 lbs, but, hey, we had fun

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