Bruges; Saturday, 20 December, 2008

I made sure I filled up at breakfast, with the pound in free-fall against the Euro the idea of stopping at restaurants during the day for a lunch wasn’t one that I wanted to contemplate.

Heading out from the hotel I followed one of two suggested walks that the hotel gives to all their guests. The walk goes around some of the most historic parts of the city, taking in all the key sites and passing many of the city’s museums.

First stop, after just a couple of hundred yards was the Halve Mann brewery, and not one to turn down the chance of a brewery tour I went in, an hour (and a half-pint) later I continued on the walk round through some of the alms houses of the city and along more of the canal sides.

By the time I finally finished wandering and emerged at the Cathedral it was gone 1pm, by which time the cathedral itself had closed for lunch, so I wandered a bit further down to the Markt. When I got there I was just in time for the bus tour. I had attempted to take the bus tour when I was last in Bruges, but on that occasion the police had started to close off all the roads ready for a road race, and consequently they had to cancel the tour half way round (though they didn’t charge anyone!)

This time the tour did run it’s full and interesting course, and helped to fill in some of the blanks in my mental map of the city of how things linked together.

From the bus tour I had another wander around the city centre, this time heading away East from the Markt and Burg. After wandering for the best part of another hour I found myself back at the Belfort in the Markt, just before it was due to close, and being a tower-junkie, I had to climb it. With the dying twilight on the horizon and the twinkling lights of the Christmas illuminations the city looked even more spectacular than I remember it doing so.

I descended the tower in increasing darkness and headed back towards the hotel, popping into the Church of Our Lady to have a look around on the way.

After a brief relaxation stop I headed back out into the city to look for some (cheap) dinner and to take in more of the city by night.