Day 6 - Bruges
| Waffles | €10 |
| Train to Bruges | €13 |
| Lunch near train station | €12 |
| Beer in Bruges (for 3) | €17 |
| Italian food in Bruges (for 3) | €50 |
| Charlie Rockets bar | €5 |
| Train to Namur | €19 |
| Breakfast in Namur | €10 |
| Hotel (2 nights) | €200 |
To Bruges! We get on the wrong train, and the helpful conductor writes us a ticket to Bruges and tells us how to get going in the right direction.
So naïvely we are heading to Bruges on Saturday morning in midsummer, planning to grab a hotel room or hostel, find some wifi, chill out and sightsee. We didn't do that, but we did find out that Bruges is basically the biggest tourist destination in Belgium, and even Belgian people come there to visit on weekends. So no hotel. We found a really awesome hostel - Charlie Rockets, with a cool built-in bar and a lot of interesting-seeming people hanging out there. But they laughed at us when we asked for a room. And keep in mind that we are going from hotel to hotel, with no map, with all our luggage, which we are dragging down the heavily cobbled Bruges streets. Finally we find a map -- a really cool youth-oriented map that you can get for free assembled by locals at http://use-it.be.
The map points out the location of a park, so we discouragedly go to the park. There's a huge outdoor music show there, which we watch for a while, but eventually we need food so we wander some more until we find a decent Italian restaurant. Neil loves Italian, so we eat a thoroughly unexciting pasta meal there, with wine -- the only time we have wine on this trip.
Had a Rodenbach Grand Cru on the park benches while we watched the sun go down, and we just talked / watched people for a few hours. Finally people were starting to drift off, and we decided to stay up until 4am, at which time we would take the earliest train out of Bruges. We try to kill time on a swingset for a while, but it turns out swings aren't very fun when you're exhausted. Neil goes back to the bar, finds wifi, and books us a hotel room in Namur, while Tim and I futilely try to get a nap on a park bench. Finally, with reservation in hand, I stash the luggage in some underbrush and we wander Bruges on foot until it's time to take the train.
We get some naps on the train; change in Brussels; wake up again in Namur at 7:30am. Quick breakfast and we check a local map. The hotel, called "Chateau de Namur," appears to be about a mile south of the train station. OK, so we walk. About 3/4 of a mile later, we're at the foot of an extremely steep hill. There's a dirt path going straight up, but the main road turns and twists. Exhausted, but determined to get to our hotel room as soon as possible (so we can sleep), we head straight uphill. Topping the first super-steep hill, there are only three more, so we push onward. Again, this is with our luggage. Nothing for it but to climb, and climb, and climb. Finally we're at the top. Don't see a hotel, but there's a circus set up -- why, I have no idea. With sufficient wandering we found the last hill to climb before we reached the tiny, and lovely, little hotel, in an old castle, at the top of the mountain. Roses and herbs are carefully curated in the garden here. Oh, and there's an amazing view off the cliff we just climbed. But we don't stay and appreciate it -- we convince the hotel to let us check in early (they made us upgrade our room to do it, but that was fine with us). Sleeping 3 guys to a king bed is the way we end that day 6.
