Bruges; Sunday, 21 December, 2008

After another massive breakfast I headed out of the hotel on the second of the two walks the hotel suggests. This walk goes East out of the very centre of the city following the canals up to the main canal which leads to Zeebrugge and the coast. It then follows the main canal which also follows the old city fortifications, and past four windmills on the site of former fortifications.

By the time I got back into the city centre it was already gone one, and as I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry I thought it would be a good time to visit some museums.

The first museum I visited was the Choco-Story, followed by the Friet museum, by the end of which I was still not feeling hungry (but not so certain that chips on top of chocolate is a great combination).

I wandered a bit more around the city centre as the sun finally broke through the clouds that had pressed down on the city since I had arrived, sadly, it was almost at exactly the same time that it was setting, so it didn’t last for that long.

Having exhausted the Christmas markets in Bruges over the previous couple of evenings, I hopped on a train the short distance to Oostende to take in the markets there. Now, its possible that I missed the main market, as supposedly Oostende has quite a good Christmas market, but the one I looked round wasn’t particularly good, or particularly large.

I had a bit of a wander around Oostende before heading back to the train and back to Bruges. After a brief pit stop in the hotel I popped out for a bite to eat and then back to the hotel to start packing.