Belgium Day 3 & 4: Bruges & Brussels {December 30-31}

Bruges

Our last full day in Belgium, we went back to Bruges to see the things we had missed the first day. We first climbed the Belfry Tower (after a 1-hour wait), which involved 266 narrow, winding steps. We were pretty nervous about taking the kids up there, but they did awesome. I carried Eliza in the Ergo, and the boys didn’t complain at all. There were some pretty tight spots because people were coming up & down the same staircase, but we had a pretty awesome view from the top.

Part of the clock mechanism:

 

views from the top:

the “Treasure Chest” in one of the rooms partway up the Belfry tower. The boys were pretty excited to see it :) It used to house all the town contracts and official documents – there were 13 keys held by different people, all required to open it. And right: the bike Ryan wanted me to take a picture of

The Madonna and Child by Michaelangelo in the Notre Dame de Bruges cathedral. It was the only sculpture by Michaelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime. It was removed during WWII by retreating German soldiers, who wrapped in a mattresses in a Red Cross Truck. It was found 2 years later in Austria and returned to Bruges. It was fun to see how interested Bennett and Ryan were – sometimes I feel like the things we’re seeing go right over their head, and I’m sure they do, but they can at least appreciate some of the cool things we see!

After seeing the Madonna and child, we mostly wandered around the streets of Bruges, exploring the little alleys and canals. We ventured into a couple of lace shops and tried a couple of different (yummy!) kinds of waffles and chocolates, both of which Bruges (and Belgium) is famous for.

 

North Sea Coast

Before we left our last day, we went for a walk along the beach. It was freezing cold (as was our whole trip, unfortunately), but the sun was out and it was beautiful.

Brussels

On our way back to Luxembourg, we stopped in Brussels. We will definitely need to go back and see more of the city, but Eliza had just come down with a fever and we were ready to go ‘home’, so we just stopped for a couple hours and had lunch on the main square downtown. We got one more round of waffles and walked over to see the “Mannekin Pis” statue (see photos below). We were surprised at how small it is for how famous it is. There are many legends about the origin of the statue, but either way, it is a little random to have become one of the most popular sights.

Belgium Day 2: Northern Coast {December 29}

After our day in Bruges, we stayed in an AirBnB apartment on the coast of the North Sea in Belgium. It was a great little place with a view of the ocean. Our second day, we took a train that goes along the Belgium coast. It’s a hop on / hop off train and the boys were so excited to be able to ride the train. Eliza wasn’t so excited. She screamed for a while, but eventually calmed down.

We got on in Ostend, a few blocks from where we were staying, and stopped in:

* Blankenberge, where we saw the marina, ate a picnic lunch, walked on the pier, and tried not to freeze. We then rode the rest of the way to the end of the line in

* Knokke-Heist. We walked around the downtown area and found an ice skating rink and a duck pond, where we fed the ducks our leftover bread from lunch.

* De Haan: The last city we stopped at on the way back was De Haan. We hadn’t planned to stop there, but saw it on the way over and thought it looked like a fun little town, so we decided to stop there on the way back. They had a really cool train station, and we found a fun playground for the boys to play on for a bit. The best part was the row of buildings right across from the train station. They were gorgeous!

We went back to Ostend and found dinner downtown, saw another ice skating rink, and the town’s cathedral. The boys kept talking about how many trains they had been on that day, and how much fun it was. Overall a fun but not too stressful day.

Eliza looking out at the ocean from our apartment; some of the buildings in Blankenberge

The pier in Blankenberge. There was a row of high-rise apartment buildings facing the beach and as we walked between two of them to get back to the train, Bennett had to grab onto a pole so he wouldn’t be blown away (literally!) by the wind

Another one on the pier in Blankenberge, and feeding the ducks in Knokke.

    

A church in Knokke; Train station in De Haan

 

De Haan

  

Riding the train; Ice Skating rink in Ostend, and the Ostend Cathedral