Bruges, Belgium

Bailey and I are not the pros of getting up early, but we didn’t do too bad this morning! We hit an 8:44 train to Bruges, and an hour later we had arrived. We love how close everything is in Europe!

Right away we were impressed with Bruges. It is basically a fairytale land. Like, Cinderella could have walked out in the streets and I wouldn’t have even been surprised. It is just so historic, and like stepping into the past!

We can be happy anywhere in the world as long as there is Coke.

It was a beautiful and cultural walk to our first destination, which was the Church of Our Lady. It was a cool church and all, but we were there for one reason. To see Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges! There are very few Michelangelo pieces outside of Italy, so we were lucky to gaze upon such a masterpiece this day. For real though. Dang, Michelangelo! I could stare at the thing for hours, but there was some seriously loud Cathedral construction going on behind us so we didn’t spend hours there. Don’t you find it sketchy that there was construction going on right in front of the sculpture? We though that was weird.

Anyway, they had a couple of other exhibits and early frescos that were super interesting to see. I also liked to look at Bailey, who had been asked to wear his backpack on his front.

All of that art appreciation can really make one hungry, so lunch time it was! We stopped by a random restaurant which of course had hamburgers. Why is America the country known for hamburgers?! This place has way more hamburgers than we do! We hadn’t tried them here yet but let’s just say that after we did... we won’t again. It filled my stomach though, so it did the job!

We walked out of the restaurant and saw a booth for boat tour tickets. It wasn’t a bad price, so we decided to get in line!

Crazy story. We sat down and soon enough another young couple sat next to us speaking in American accents. We asked them where they were from and lo and behold! They’re from Provo! Like, what even are the chances of that. We were all pretty amused.

The boat tour was definitely the highlight of the day. We were warm and we saw some seriously medieval sights. I felt like I was on a Disneyland ride, but it was even cooler because it was all real! I love how well preserved Bruges is. There was so much to take in, I didn’t take many pictures but please just go to Bruges and see it for yourself!

After the boat tour we climbed to the top of the Belfry of Bruges. It was quite the workout, let me tell you. It was also quite treacherous and I thought I might fall to my death on multiple occasions. Finally, though, we made it to the top and rejoiced! The view was so worth the work! What a dreamy place.

Our last stop was the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments because I really am fascinated with that stuff. They had a lot of wax figures which were a little graphic considering it was a museum of torture... but they also really helped tell the story. We spent tons of time there, reading the plaques for each instrument of torture. I seriously could not believe how creative they got with torturing people. Like, shouldn’t one torture strategy be enough? Anyway, we learned some terrible things that made me so grateful to live in the time that I do. We were very entertained at that creepy place, though!

We stopped by a chocolate shop after that to stock up for our train ride. We are now on our way to Luxembourg, with stomachs full of delicious chocolate!  Bruges was gorgeous, and we hope to make it back in the future.