Well, we're here, its in color and the day is bright and beautiful. Our place the Alergia Hotel, but really a Bed and Breakfast has a lovely garden off the dining room. We consider eating out, but its just a little too cool.
After a typical European breakfast of meats, cheeses, breads, orange juice and coffee, we venture out. As advertised, we are 1 1/2 blocks from the main square. The platz is dominated by the clock tower where one of the criminals jumped from but didn't die immediately. Another thing that irritated me about the film.
Anyway, we wonder around a bit toward a canal city tour. There are four tour boat companies, all give you the same tour. We choose the one that is a little out of the way and has the shortest line. Its a short wait and then onto the boat that rocks as big people get on. The captain/tour guide waits until he has a full load and is balanced. He surveys our group for language preferences. No surprise - Dutch, French, and English. So, he alternates between each language and driving the boat. Why is it that every time we take a tour using multiple languages does it seem like the guide spends more time speaking the other languages than English? Is this just our imagination or are those other people getting more information than we are, or does it take more words in other languages to express yourself?
We see old buildings, a little history about Bruges and its golden era of the 15th century. Bruges was a major trading center and known for the quality of the merchandise sold there. Bruges was synonymous with quality.
After the tour, Linda wants to buy a pendant she had seen earlier. On the way to that vendor we pass a painter and buy one of his watercolors of the city. She buys the pendant and then we walk back to the main platz to the Historium - a multi-media presentation of the history of the city during the 15th century. Its interesting: you are guided to walk through rooms, each with a video presentation with a story line of a young apprentice who works for van Eyeck and falls in love. The rooms are decorated in period modeling. The audio is from a mobile unit where you select your language. Works good. From the terrace, I take some pictures of the main platz below. Here's me in the picture that van Eyeck was painting in the story.
We eat lunch at one of the many cafes ringing the platz. I pick this one because earlier when I asked if their kitchen closed at 2:00, the guy was nice and funny. And, by the way, they don't. They stay open all day. We order the lunch special which starts with a herring salad for Linda and a shrimp salad for me. I ask how it is and she says, "its fishy and interesting". I decide to pass on her offer of a taste. Her main course is a Flemish stew - delicious, especially the dark sauce - and I get mussels which are also tasty. We end with chocolate mousse. I break my diet and eat it. Hey, this is Belgium where the best chocolate comes from.
I'm still suffering from my cold and tired. We walk back to our room. Linda goes back out to shop and I take a nap. She returns with no bags. But, she has a goal of eating a Belgium waffle with chocolate sauce, not Nutella. We walk around with the intention of finding the perfect place where we can sit and have an espresso and share a waffle. After walking up and down several streets we find ourselves back at the main platz and sit at one of the cafes. They have waffles with assorted toppings. All more costly than the street vendors that don't have seating. I guess seating comes with a price. Our waiter is rather indifferent and really pushes the waffle of the house that has a mystery sauce. Linda thinks that might be nice, but as he walks away from the table he mentions it comes with ice cream and she doesn't want that. As these waiters do, he punches the order into his portable machine that connects with the kitchen. Linda smells a rat and gets up and tries to change the order to just the chocolate sauce. When he delivers it, there is a waffle soaked in chocolate sauce with slices of banana and a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a separate dish. Linda thinks she successfully changed the order but when the bill comes we are charged the outrageous price of 11 euros, 3.50 euros more than any of the other waffle selections. Linda is pissed. She complains to our moody waiter but he says it was not possible to change the charge on the order, it was already in the computer. What a joke.
We walk around for about 15 or 20 minutes with Linda fuming all the way. We circle back around and she confronts him again and tells him he has ruined her visit to Bruges. He claims no responsibility that makes her even madder. Its a standoff, but at least she spoke up for herself and felt better for doing it but her angst kept her from a good night's sleep.
Tomorrow will be a better day.
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