Our first day - Saturday we took the train to Bruges. We got the metro from Louisa to Brussels Midi which is only 3 stops. I downloaded the SNCB app as you get 50% off from 7pm Friday to Sunday so it cost us €18.80 (£15) each return. The train is only an hour with 2 stops but it was super busy and we had to stand until we made the stop.
The weather was crap it just rained all day and didn't stop till 4/5pm.
We got to Bruges at like 11:30am.
We just followed everyone as we presumed they were all going to the centre as well.
(Luckily they were)
We went to Maccies to get an ice cream but they were all showing as "sold out" so ended up getting an 11 piece crispy chicken share box which had chicken nuggets, chicken selects and chicken wings - €11
The box was mainly nuggets with 3 chicken selects and 3 chicken wings.
After we walked into the main square
It was so wet and miserable so of course we ended up getting a gelato..
I got the Dubai chocolate and Jo got speculoos - €2.50 for 1 scoop in a cone
We then just walked around doing laps of Bruges in the rain
Would have been so nice if it wasn't raining
Umbrella ruining photos
We stopped off at a cafe to shelter from the rain and got a waffle and hot chocolate for €5
It eventually stopped raining!
We went for dinner in one of the restaurants in the main square.
Mussels are a Belgian thing so we had to try it
We went for garlic in white wine sauce. They didn't have ham and pineapple pizza on the menu but Jo asked the waiter and he said he would ask for us and then it appeared. The mussels also came with a small tray of chips. There were so many mussels but they were good.
Our food came to €53.50 with a bottle of water that was tiny only 500ml. We had the exact change in cash and I left Jo with it and went the toilet. When I came back Jo said the man wants a tip and I'm like what? Cos the bill didn't say anything about a tip it only had the total on it. I was putting my coat on and getting ready to go with my back to him then go to leave and he basically held us hostage and wouldn't let us leave. He was waffling on about it and circling the receipt and saying it was his wage or something. We didn't have any change so Jo took out a €10 note and he took €6 of it and then let us go.
We were held hostage for €6 surprised he didn't just take the full €10.
I Google mapped us back to the station and it was saying 45 minute walk. We walked down side streets in the morning so had no idea how to go back. I checked THREE times that it was definitely the train station. We walked and it took us out in the sticks. We carried on walking and got to Club Bruges Football Stadium and I was like this isn't it. Jo googled and it said 45 minutes back the way we came from. I checked the train times and the last train out of Bruges back to Brussels was 8:33pm as there were train strikes that weekend.
It was gone 8:15pm there was no way we'd make it back in time. We walked past a supermarket and went to go in to see if they could ring us a taxi but it shut at 8pm. Jo went up to a guy getting on his bike and I went to this old lady walking her dog. She couldn't understand English but understood the word taxi and that I was clearly in a rush. Luckily she'd just came out her flat and took me to it and her husband could speak English said to get the bus. It comes every 10 mins at this time, is only 10 mins and is cheaper. The stop was back on the opposite side of the main road.
We were so lucky that when we got to the bus stop the bus came. It stopped 3x and were praying the train was late. Once it stopped we sprinted up to the platform. My lace came un-done as I was running up the escalator but we made it! It was 8:34pm and the train left 7 minutes late. We were SO lucky. We would have had to stay the night in a hotel and get the train back in the morning otherwise!
Back in Brussels after getting the metro back. We were SO lucky and it's definitely an adventure going away with me with a story to tell!
We spent far too much time in Bruges and didn't actually do anything and nearly got stuck there... We should have went to Ghent or somewhere else for the day. But we did make it to Ghent on the Sunday so that's the next post...
No comments:
Post a Comment