A Weekend in Brugge, Belgium

On a Saturday morning in June, Chris and I woke up at the crack of dawn to take the Eurostar through the “Chunnel” (the English Channel tunnel) to Brussels, Belgium. We then hopped onto a very crowded local train to Brugge. Chris had already been to Belgium twice before for work, but this was my first time, and we were both excited to explore the adorable city of Brugge together!

Of course our first stop was at a cafe called Carpe Diem. We weren’t planning on doing any kind of walking around before first getting some Belgian waffles in us! We ordered some waffles and coffee and gobbled them down while planning out the rest of our day.

Happy that we’d had our fill of waffles, we continued on through the streets of Brugge, admiring the quaint architecture as we wandered.

We later stopped for lunch at Chez Vincent, then decided we should grab a beer at Brewery Bourgogne des Flandres… And for those of you that don’t know yet, by “we should grab a beer,” I mean “Chris should grab a beer,” because these Navigating Newlyweds (now celebrating our 2 year anniversary) are pregnant!!

The brewery was amazing. We sat right out on the canal and took in the views of Brugge. Chris tried a couple of Belgian beers, while I enjoyed some water and sunshine.

Next, we popped around the corner to another canal-side bar called 2be/Dubbel bvba. It had a great vibe, and we sat out on a wall by the canal, people-watching and enjoying the canal views and lovely weather.

We grabbed a(nother) quick waffle and piece of Belgian chocolate before heading to our AirBnB to check in. The hosts and the flat were absolutely lovely, and Chris and I enjoyed a quick (ok, long) nap before heading out to find some dinner. We loved wandering the streets on our way!

We ended up grabbing a small dinner at Vlissinghe (which has apparently been running for over 500 years!) then went to Le Trappiste for a drink. What a cool bar! We also checked out t’ Poatersgat before heading back to our AirBnB around midnight. We were exhausted after our day of exploring!

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast at the AirBnB, provided by our generous and friendly hosts, David and Yulie. We chatted with them for a bit, got some more recommendations on what to do on our last day in Brugge, and headed out to check out some windmills.

We didn’t have much of a plan for our second day in Brugge, so after we left the windmills, we just started wandering toward the centre to find some coffee. We walked along a canal and saw some cute houses…

…and eventually ended up in Market Place, where we checked out the touristy sights for about 5 seconds…

…before deciding to head to a somewhat-hidden terrace we’d found the day before. We ordered coffee (and Chris got a beer), and chilled out by the canal for a bit. It was a beautiful day and we were enjoying the sun and blue skies!

Next, we went for a reasonably-priced, 30-minute canal cruise on an overly-packed boat, with a captain/tour guide who switched between French, German, and English throughout the canal tour. (Quite impressive!)

When we got off the boat, we headed to a nearby park to check out a Latin American food truck festival we’d heard about from our AirBnB hosts. We were seriously missing this kind of food, as it’s hard to find in London!

At around 4pm, we headed to the train station and hopped on the next train to Brussels, where we walked around, checked out some city sights, grabbed a few more bites of chocolate…

…and finally hopped back on the train to catch the Eurostar back to London. It was another great weekend trip (or should I say “babymoon??”) in the books for the Navigating Newlyweds! 🙂