Miles traveled. 10.1. 152.9
Feet climbed. 110. 13,350
Song of the Day: Flanders Field by Big Head Todd and the Monsters
In Flander's Fields where poppies blow
Between the crosses row by row
To mark our places and in the sky
The larks go bravely singing fly
This morning, we took a train from Brussels to Bruges, a trip of about one hour. We will stay in Bruges for two night, before heading to Amsterdam on Wednsday. Bruges is one of our favorite smaller towns in Europe, just a spectacular, well preserved medieval ages town.
One of my favorite independent movies of the past 10 years is called "In Bruges" starring Colin Farrell and Brandon Gleason. It's about two hit men who botch a job and get sent to Bruges to hide out. It's a terrific movie, and does a good job of showing off the sites of Bruges (albeit in the winter time).
Bruges is located in the "Flanders" section of Belgium, very near the sea and also near the Dutch border. This area was made famous in WW I, as it was part of the so-called Western Front. There was a famous poem written about this area called Flanders Field, which I recall reading when I was growing up.
In spite of the fact that Bruges is a relatively small place and that we were not hiking, we still managed to walk almost 20 miles he past two days. And because the streets and sidewalks are all cobblestone, the hiking can be cahallenging on the legs and feet.
On Monday evening, we sat in a bar for a couple of hours, watching the Italy-Spain Euro Cup game. We love both of those countries, but were cheering for Spain. In the end, Italy won 2-0 and will now advance to the next round. Later that evening, England got beat by Iceland in the knockout round. Think about that- Iceland is a country of 300,000 people! It has been a bad few days for England.....
Bruges is sort of a combination of Sienna and Venice. It has several very large plazas and buildings similar to Sienna, but also has canals similar to Venice. The preservation in the town is truly stunning.
The woman at our hotel said tourism is down and attributed this to three factors: 1. European economy is weak. 2. Terrorism in Brussels has hurt Bruge and 3. European tourists are going to France for the Euro Cup. Funny enough, we saw a lot of American tourists. The woman at the hotel told us that in Belgium, you do not need to tip the waiters, because it is all included. She warned us to be careful, as the waiters will take advantage of Americans, knowing their habit of tipping. Sure enough, the first night, there were some Americans sitting next to us at the restaurant. When the waiter brough the credit card machine out, he asked them how much he should add on for a tip!
Just as we were going to bed, there was an announcement on tv about some bombs at the Istanbul airport, with perhaps 30-40 people killed. In the late 90's we spent 5 days visiting Istanbul with our kids when we lived in Barcelona. It is a beautiful city and we enjoyed the trip. We also went on a trip to Egypt at that time. We are glad that we got to see these places, but not sure we will visit again due to security concerns.
It was overcast with lite sprinkles much of the past few days. There were a few times when it actually rained, and perhaps even 20 minutes where the sun peaked through. One of the big problems with Northern Europe is the crappy weather. We were fortunate to have reasonably good weather when we hiked in Germany, but have had only rain and overcast skies since.
On Wed morning, we will take the train to Amsterdam. Although Amsterdam is only 100 miles away, the train will take 4 hours, as we have to take a local train to Antwerp, then wait 1 hour for s train to Amsterdam. Will be a good chance to get caught up on some reading.....
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