Brugge and Setola BnB

If it's Thursday it must be Brugge! We had a rather interesting train ride from Amsterdam due to some rail repairs and ignorance on our part. We missed the first train (our ignorance) and had four train changes (their repairs) for a 200 mile trip, which took us from 10:55 until 1600 (4pm - no more conversions for you). It's two hours on a fast train!

Took a bus from the station with all the school kids about 1700 and checked in to the nicest BnB on our trip so far. Except for it being on the third floor it was wonderful. Just off a busy square in a quiet neighborhood on the right side of town. Lut, our host, was warm and helpful. The place was one room with an extra bed (dang) so I planned on another quite night.

We walked around until about 1900 and had the best meal so far. My lasagna was the best I've ever had and the restaurant, Cafe Vlissinghe, was celebrating it's 500th anniversary!  Afterwards we walked along the canals and watched the swans.

Pretty cool. We all decided that if you want canals, Amsterdam is the place. But if you want canals and charm, Brugge is it. We've been to Venice but this place is just so charming and it's very clean and it's easy to get away from the crowds. We really do like Brugge.

Friday we went walking and saw Michaelangelo's Madonna and Child at the Church of Our Lady. It was one of the items they were trying save in the movie "Monuments Men". We took a canal ride, walked around for a few hours and ended up at our favorite 500 year-old restaurant for a late lunch. B has had two beers, Alice just one. Guess who's tired? Our feet are killing us because of the cobblestone everything. Wear sneakers if you come. And then there's people with dogs! OMG! I watched one woman spend maybe half of her time as she walked down the street trying to manage her dog and people jumping out of the way of her leash. Between the horse drawn carriages and other fools with their dogs, her pooch was going crazy. AND people expecting you to stop so they can take a picture of their friend standing on the bridge. Shit, if you had to wait for everyone to do that it would take fifteen minutes to go 100 feet. Saturday early we're off to Berlin and Thomas and Friends.