Beautiful Belgium - Bruges and Brussels Trip with Studifahrten Posted on: 28th October 2016 :: Photo Credits: Silva, Prayaag, Alap, Pabitra, Gaurav ::
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Preface
Another weekend trip! ‘Studifahrten’ group organized a one day trip to Belgium covering the cities ‘Brugges’ and ‘Brussels’. It was really cheap (40 Euros only) so we immediately booked our seats.
Day : 1
Location: Bruges (Belgium)
The bus arrived in Aachen at midnight after picking up people from other cities. So our group of 5 people couldn’t find seats together and we had to sit separately on the bus. But since it was a short journey we did not mind. We reached Bruges early in the morning and had about 4 hours to explore the town. Bruges is famous for its medieval building, cobbled streets, and canals. We started with a park called ‘Minnewaterpark’ in the south of Bruges. The term ‘minnewater’ literally translates to ‘Lake of Love’ which is at the heart of the park.
There was a bridge across the lake called ‘Lover’s bridge’. Legend says that ‘If you walk over the bridge and kiss your loved one, it will become eternal love’. In the park, we saw some metallic statues of horse riders, which looked just like the ‘White Walkers’ from Game of Thrones series and we wondered whether those characters were inspired by these statues.
We walked through the famous cobbled streets of Bruges to reach the central area of the city.
Suddenly the sky got covered with dark clouds and it started raining. We had to take shelter below the canopies of street-shops. Fortunately, the rain stopped within 15 minutes and we continued our tour across Brugges. The trees in the city had turned into beautiful colors of Autumn. We went past the Statue-of-John-of-Nepomuk and Belfry of Bruges (a medieval bell tower) on the way.
The ‘Burg Square’ and ‘Marketplace’ at the center of the city were crowded places, mainly due to tourists and local vendors. The Marketplace had a monument of Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninch (who in 1302 played a major role in the Flemish resistance against the French King).
In the market, we saw the famous Belgian chocolate shops but decided to buy chocolates later in Brussels.
We walked through the city and were taken aback by the spectacular canals! Brugges is sometimes also referred to as ‘The Venice of the North!
We spent about an hour walking across the bridges on canals and enjoying the view. The city was now waking up to a lazy Saturday morning and we saw the trademark horse-carts operated by women carrying people across the city.
On our way back to the bus pick up spot, we stumbled across a Beer museum which had some interesting quotes written on a wall full of beer bottles (I completely disagree with the quotes though :P)
We assembled at the pickup spot near Minnerva Park at noon and after having our trip-special lunch of pasta and Nutella sandwiches, left for our next destination: Brussels, the capital and largest city of Belgium and the capital of European Union.