abqtoadam: Bruges

After our brief stop in Antwerp, Matt and Denise and I caught a train north to Bruges, which is known as one of Belgium's top tourist traps, if not its top. I'd heard mixed, and often polarized, opinions of Bruges from friends and couchsurfers. Some find it quaint, romantic, beautiful, and even magical. Others find it fake, touristy, and boring.

My opinion fell somewhere in the middle. It indeed had several beautiful churches/cathedrals, including one with a high belfry. And the architecture was nice, though nothing better than I'd seen in Leuven, Gent, or Antwerp. But it also was pretty boring, with virtually every cafe being a tourist spot rather than a local, quiet place to grab food or a drink. And the volume of tourist foot traffic really grated on my experience as a walking tourist.

A shelf of erotic chocolates in a Belgium chocolate shop. Say hi to Denise in the mirror!

The less erotic assortments of chocolates.

Matt's pot of mussels at a Flemish restaurant

Denise was a trooper, climbing herself and her bun in the oven up the stairs to the top of the belfry, where we had a panoramic view of the city.

Again, the city was fairly boring, and we didn't have too many options for activities apart from churches. There were a handful of museums, none of which seemed particularly remarkable. I encouraged Matt and Denise to go to the campiest of the options, which was the french fry museum. I thought that it might be fun, and might teach us some cool stuff about fries.

I was wrong. Dead wrong. It ranked up there with the torture museum and the Heineken Experience I went to in Amsterdam in 2002 (and, relatedly, have not returned to since moving here). It was an utterly boring tour through rooms with placards that detailed the botanical history of the potato, the European conquest of South America and adoption of the potato, nutrition facts about the potato, etc.