Working on my "To-Eat List" in Bruges

Today was a lovely, sunny autumn day to visit the beautiful town of Bruges, and I'm so glad that Ashlee and I decided against making the day trip yesterday, when it was dreary & cold.

According to Ashlee, Bruges is a must-see destination for anyone visiting Belgium. It took us an hour and half by train to get there, and we spent all day walking around, admiring the picturesque town with its canal...

Just like in Leuven, I thought, "Ah, it's so cute here!"


As you can (kind of) see in the background, work was being done on the main church. Ashlee said that there's always construction being done in Belgium since the buildings are so old.

It might be hard to tell from the photo, but those swans were HUGE! We kept our distance.

The central plaza--the Market--was alive with activity. We sat near the statue to eat the "kip curry" (chicken curry) sandwiches we had packed and some of the amazing chocolate we had bought.

We saw several carriages throughout the day.

We also saw an interesting display of photography in the street.

As we walked around, we ducked in and out of several chocolate shops, trying different kinds of truffles and other treats. We were glad to find out that we could buy the small chocolates just two at a time instead of paying by the gram/kilogram, since it was better to sample exactly what we wanted that way.

My favorite truffle of the day was the crème brûlée flavor, which was incredible; it gets a 6 on a scale of 1 to 5.) :) As Ashlee said, "I feel like I'm eating something illegal!" it was that sinfully delicious.

Since Belgium is famous for its fine chocolate, waffles and fries, I have more of a To-Eat List instead of a To-Do List!, haha. It's a good thing I've been doing a ton of walking!

Belgium is also well-known for its beer, but that doesn't interest me like the other three do.

However, on Saturday night when I went out with Ashlee and one of her friends, I did try a beer I liked, called Kriek. But I liked it because it was cherry flavor & so sweet that it was almost like Kool-Aid.

I think it's interesting that each kind of beer has its own special glass, as you can see in the above picture of the beer wall.

We visited the Choco Story museum, where we learned about...you guessed it...the story of chocolate--its history and development.

Ashlee as a cocoa bean. :)

My I had my first batch of fries in Belgium topped with andalouse sauce (which is hard to describe, but kind of reminded me of Thousand Island dressing.) I bought these fries from a street vendor, which is the traditional way to get them. Fries were actually created in Belgium, and Belgians don't like it when they're referred to as French fries!

My first Belgian waffle in Belgium--which was another historical moment--was yesterday, but I'll write about that another time... :)

Goodnight for now (it's midnight here, but only 6 p.m. at home) & sweet dreams!