366 Spiral Steps

Today began our first and only full day in Bruges, so we started by walking around the town a little bit. I showed Chelsy the odd hotel I stayed at last time I was here, we tried to go to a few museums that were closed (only on Mondays), then we concluded our walk with some lunch at this place:




We both had some very delicious sandwiches and were on our way. Just outside the restaurant, Chelsy was asked (for the 2nd time already) to take someone's picture, so I naturally had to take a picture of that.




After being re-energized by lunch, we decided to continue the tourist tradition of paying money to climb to the top of things. In this case it was the Bruges Belfort, or belfry tower.




As the blog post suggests, the tower has 366 steps, all in a spiral staircase formation. Also, it is a very narrow staircase, barely enough for one person to get through, much less two (which is the case because people are coming down). If you don't know me, you may not know that I don't like spiral staircases. Not a fan, always have to work one leg more than the other. So these are basically worst case scenario steps here.

It wasn't too hard of a climb overall and we made it to the top. Here is a view from the top.







Afterwards we continued exploring the numerous chocolate shops, toy shops, and clothing stores. We came upon this funny toy monkey and decided to video it. Let me know if you can see this video. If so, maybe we can post more in the next few days.

After that, we happened to pass by a museum that was dedicated exclusively to French fries, so of course we had to go in. Not our proudest moment but the guy at the admission counter had his back turned to us so we just slipped on by him. In our defense, the sign that probably said "Pay here" or "Admission" was in a different language, so we couldn't be sure anyway, right?

We went back to the hotel to warm up a little after all the walking.

After leaving the hotel again, it was time for dinner. It seems one of the local foods is mussels, so I wanted to get some for sure.

Here's what I ordered (along with free fries).




In case you're wondering, it's mussels in white wine and cream sauce and Chelsy got a steak. We both really enjoyed dinner and it was very nice.

Funny side note - Regrdless of how romantic or serious of a conversation you are having, the conversation generally stops dead when you hear the guy at the next table say "random French random French random French Speedy Gonzalez random French". I just stopped talking immediately and started smiling, trying my hardest not to laugh.

Anyway, we are almost done with Bruges and tomorrow we will make our way to Nuremberg to see the biggest Christmas market in Germany.

Farewell from Bruges.