How can Bruges not be somebody's thing

To quote In Bruges.....which partially inspired this visit......excuse the language........

It's a fairytale town, isn't it? How's a fairytale town not somebody's fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh?

So yeah it is a fairy tale of a city. We drove there and had to put up with a bit of a traffic jam, but we still got there by about 10:30, parked the car and headed to our hotel in the heart of the fairy tale. To honour our visit they had decide to close the old city to traffic and put on some live performances in every square. We were touched.

We dropped off our stuff and crossed the street to the Belfry. We looked at the queue and thought :

Me: Been to the top of the tower?

Guus: Yeah... yeah, it's rubbish.

Sorry, I'll stop quoting the film. The queue was long so we skipped the climb, and after a brief visit to an art exhibition, we did what we ALWAYS do....just wander





The buildings were wonderful, both the monumental......




and the ordinary.......



Yes there were canals...and swans......and lots of tourists



some bloody awful ones



and bridges with stories......if you get over the bridge in under twenty steps you will have a long and loving relationship. Over twenty: may as well say goodbye now. Linda and Guus leapt across in under 10. We made it across with a couple to spare.......




It was wall to wall 'look at that'.......







Even though there were approximately 1,873,454 chocolate shops, we bought marzipan......







Marjan checked out the comfrey......




and after a lambic beer, very interesting taste, we retired to the confines of this non-religious monastic cloister....very lovely and peaceful.......







Look, I could show you more but it is just drooling over this beautiful city. Suffice to say we loved it and expect to continue to do so tomorrow.






We dined in an underground cavern with an opening to the old under the road sewer/pipe, at a place called the Belgian Pigeon House and yes I had the pigeon. We were all fairly well sated by the end of our night.