21.2.12 Bruges, Damme, and Knokke-Heist, Belgium

Breakfast was in the bar next door, consisting of cornflakes, coffee, orange juice, and a bunch of different pastries – including those with fillings and stuff. I was pumped.

I walked into the main square and tried to see about getting a boat tour. The first ones of the day were after 10, so I had some time and went into the Basilica of the Holy Blood. It’s in Burg Square with a Romanesque lower church (I lit a candle for a wooden Mary carving from the 1300s) and an upper part built during the Renaissance that houses a vile containing two drops of Jesus’ blood. This is a huge deal here.

I went down to the canals and got on a boat tour. I grabbed a seat in the very back. The guide gave info in French and English, although nothing really incredible. But the canals were. The boat ride lasted just over a half hour but went through the entire town and with it not terribly cold (although I put my hand in the water and it was freezing) and the sun was out, it was an awesome ride. We even saw swans. I really love taking boats around, it’s a different feel to the city, especially ones where the water played such a huge role.

I walked around a little and went over to Dumon, a family-run chocolate place recommended by a bunch of things I read. It was just off the main square in a tiny old building. The nephew of the man who makes all the chocolate was behind the register and offered me a sample. We talked for a little and I asked what his recommendation was. He said the 15-piece sampler for 5.75 Euro was good, so I got it.

I took it over to Burg and ate a bunch of them. I’m all for fancy chocolates, but I’d rather have a pure chocolate bar any day. They were good though.

My left foot was giving me quite a problem and everyone in Bruges gets around on bike so I went back to the hostel to try to get one of their bikes, thinking if nothing else it would ease my pain a little. They weren’t renting out any so I went back to Markt, sat on a bench and finished up my chocolates and walked over to a place where I could get a bike all day for only 6 Euro.

After showing me a map and recommending I bike to Damme and maybe the beach, the lady showed me how to use the bike lock (just on the tire, never used one before. I struggled too much with it to really instill confidence in her I felt.) and I took off toward the canal with the intention of getting to Damme.

I biked around for maybe 10 minutes before I was pretty sure I was lost so I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and figured out how to get to Damme. There is free internet everywhere in Bruges, some of it must be paid for by the city or something because I get a strong signal of it everywhere.

The ride to Damme was along a canal the entire way. Quickly I was outside of the city and the landscape turned to exactly what you’d picture the Belgian countryside like. There were a bunch of trees and farms with various farm animals. It was pretty awesome.

There’s an old windmill just inside Damme and across from it is the town. It’s pretty tiny but exactly what you'd want to be in the Belgian countryside.

The Town Hall is very impressive and down the street from it is a big church that looks like is in partial ruins. I walked over down one of the side streets and got to a farm full of sheep. I was so far from home.

Although when I got back to the Town Hall there were two girls playing on the statue and singing Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” Maybe I wasn’t there far after all.

I decided I’d go all the way to the beach. The lady said it was an hour away and I figured I was halfway there. The path took me deeper into farmland with a good portion of the trip lined with trees on both sides like the France level in Cruisin’ the World. The towns kept getting smaller but according to my map I was still doing alright. On the trails they have numbers that match numbers on the map so you can tell where you’re going. They really put a bunch of effort into the bike stuff with designated lanes all over the place.

I sort of lost the path for a little but I was already in Heist. I had no idea what Heist was, if it were a city or a region or the name for beach. But it was on the map as where I was heading. I had to carry the bike up some steps but then I was basically at the beach. It was more like an hour from Damme than an hour from Bruges.

I went down the beach a ways a parked the bike outside a waffle place where I got a Belgian waffle with chocolate and somehow two carbonated waters. Not sure if I paid for them or what, but I needed them.

The waffle was excellent, best I’ve ever had. It was the right about of chewy and the chocolate was rich. I took it down to the beach to eat.

The wind was pretty strong and the beach was very cold. I didn’t even take off my shoes to walk around. I did climb up a sand dune and finished my water though. There were a bunch of kids playing around on the beach, but no one was going near the water. I don’t blame them.

The beach in Knokke-Heist wasn’t spectacular but then again I didn’t even know Belgium had a beach. If I had realized how close I was to the boarder of the Netherlands I would have biked there too.

I decided to go back a different way than I came. It looked a little shorter and I could see more of the country. Unfortunately it took me though a very industrial part and then a good chunk of it was down a highway. At one point there was construction on the side my bike path was on so I had to switch to the other. When the trucks went by I thought the wind might knock me over. It was pretty brutal.

The ride got better as I got closer to the city. At one point I was going up the bike path that was next to the on ramp of the highway. But somehow I made it work, eventually going through some farmland and then down a canal into the northernmost part of the city center. H (I fell asleep here. No idea what word starting with ‘h’ I was going to use). I stopped and got wifi and figured out where I was and went down to the Belfry to try to climb the steps like as the sun was setting, my goal for the whole day. Granted, climbing some 366 steps after biking what I calculated as over 25 miles was probably not a good idea.

I parked the bike in Markt and walked over to the tower. Just as I walked in a lady who worked there and a couple tourists were walking out and said it just closed. Bummer. I forgot that in ‘In Bruges’ they have to bribe the person working there to let them up at night.

I got some fries from the stand outside the tower and sat in the square for a while. My feet somehow didn’t hurt at all. I can’t explain it. Maybe being off them all day or that the rest of my body was probably going to hurt so much they forgot to hurt.

I had about two hours left with the bike so I took it around the center of the city, going down the cobblestone streets as cars zipped by. On the big roads they had nice bike lanes. But on the tiny one way streets in the city you were with the cars, and the one way didn’t apply to bikes, so it was a little intense. My favorite parts were going down the little side streets with no traffic. It was a great way to see the city, I wish I did it earlier.

I took the bike back and walked down to The Chocolate Line to try to get some chocolate. Turns out pretty much the entire city shuts down at like 6:30. I couldn’t believe it. So I went back to the hostel and crashed on the bed for a while. Turns out biking for hours in the crazy wind takes a lot out of you.

I went out for a walk after a little, just around the city center. My feet were still fine. Really strange.

When I got back to the hostel I tried to Skype mom but partially since my internet wasn’t great and partially since I have no idea what time it is there, it didn’t work. My plan was to get up at 6 and go down to the Belfry in the morning but online I looked and it was closed until the end of March for construction. That would explain why I didn’t see anyone going up it and never heard the bells. I was disappointed, that was pretty much the thing I wanted to do most here. Oh well.

I worked on this until I fell asleep.