The Fairy Tale Ends

Got up early after being woken by the rubbish trucks cleaning up after yesterdays special festival.

The bread deliveries were in getting ready for the breakfast crowd

The canals were calm and the boats moored

It was truly magical with nobody else much on the streets or waterways......

 and around every corner a new "Ahhhh..." moment............even ones sans colour....

I ran out of batteries so headed back to the hotel for breakfast, where we had one of those breakfast/lunch feasts.....then back out again. Our aim to get up the Belfry tower. We were a bit early so we wandered around a bit.

I loved the free bike parking........

....and the ornate buildings......

....but soon we were tramping up the narrow circular steps up to the top of the belfry tower, with everybody starting in good humour and getting a bit puffed half way up and wondering if they would make it on the last stretch. Very interesting to see the big bells and most of all to see the music drum at the top, like a giant music box really

The view from the top was pretty but spoiled a little by the wire mesh that is probably there to stop suicides. Still we could see Bruges trading past in its connection to the sea.

After a hairy walk down the narrow stairs past people climbing up we were glad to be looking at the tower from outside.

We found a spot to have a coffee whilst watching the Bruges approach to parking infringements......and.......

a wonderful example of environmental art....totally made up of Pacific Ocean debris......

 We were making our way to the windmill walk......but as it turned out the windmills were closed and not turning...

Still the Weller women were enjoying themselves.........

and trying to make a Weller woman windmill.......

we loved the ornate tower in the Bruges sports club

and the colourful mills.....

and of course the fairy tale houses.....

By this time we were quite warm/hot and in need of refreshments......the morning feast had not been sufficient to get us through to dinner, so a small, late lunch was called for. We found a bakery and had some sandwiches whilst sitting in the sun. We were all very tired and wandered back to the hotel to get our bags and see if we could find the car we had left underground yesterday. as we wandered back we noticed the smell of sewage that had been in the back of our consciousness for a couple of days....now as we trudged back the fairy tale was over.

The trip back was quite slow as we hit several traffic jams, but we had had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of days.......Thank you Linda and Guus