Brugge 1–28 May

My journey today was really quite a brief one.  An hour flight from Copenhagen to Brussels.  Then a 1.5 hr train ride from the airport via Brussels Midi to Brugge.  But in fact it has eaten up virtually a full day, by the time one takes into account travel from hotel to airport, security clearances etc.; changeover time; then finding way to new hotel, where I arrived about 3.30pm.


I was very impressed with the Brussels Airport:  modern, excellent facilities, well signed, and with the rail station underneath the baggage collection area.  The rail ticket office is an example for many others to copy.  Quick service, and they provide not only your tickets, but an English printout of your itinerary, showing exactly what platforms and what times each leg of the journey departs from and then arrives at. A simple enough service, but it takes a lot of stress out of travelling not having to go search for notice boards in foreign languages.

Bruges (French) or Brugge (Flemish) is as delightful a town as I had expected it to be.  So far, after a  nap, have only wandered up the street as far as the Eglise Notre Dame, the one with the huge tower that featured in the film “In Bruges”.  Cobbled streets filled with the click-clack of horses hooves as the procession of tourist landaus drive by, and lined with shops selling only the finest Belgian Chocolates!

After dinner at the hotel, I went for another stroll around some of the side streets, taking advantage of the late twilight still on offer.  Tomorrow I have booked on an English-language  day tour of the Flanders Fields, since I cannot hire a car, being licence-less for now.

Just a few first glimpses of Brugge here.