Big, Belgian and Beautiful

Bonjour!

Weeeeeww it's been a long time.

Just haven't been in a blogging mood lately. 

Haven't felt like talking about myself - very unusual behaviour you must think.

But that spell is over.

Got a wee bit to catch up on, but I didn't wanna just give it all up coz I know I'll regret it when I wanna read over my adventures later on.

Ok, so to start us off here's some melted brie and rasp jam:

Was a great amuse-bouche leading up to more.

Abby (an american assistant) and Court (her hubby who came over with her) hosted a few of us at their lovely flat for a bit of dinner and chat.

Prêt-à-boire - no prep needed for this sangria

Court's tortellini with a touch of wine in the back

There was a long weekend so Bryce and I took advantage of it and took a train across the border to Brussels, Belgium!

First stop was for beer - couldn't not drink some while in Belgium..

Little TinTin display in a comic book store

Belgian bangers

The elegant, chocolate and fashion-filled Galerie de la Reine

For a minute I'd thought this was the legit Manneken Pis lol

A little alleyway which we later entered..

To get these vin chauds and some chips

Hothtel Thelfie

We just wandered the streets for a while, it was a lovely, albeit rather chilly.

So we popped into a chocolate museum (of course) to further our chocolatey education.

Plus there was a fountain with a mountain of speculoos bikkies so I basically died of happiness here

YAS QUEEN GET THAT CHOCOLATE AND BISCUIT

Grand Place

The town hall

Managed to just nip into the comic book museum before it closed:

Madeleine in smurf land

Ended our first day at a super cool cocktail bar where we got to sit up on the mezzanine, looking down on all the peasants.

ALCHEMY

One of my cocktails - their selection was beautiful

Wandered back through Grand Place to view it at night:

We were also obliged to end our night with Frites:

Our Brussels hostel bathroom - thought it was pretty nice

Bewildered by the size of these speculoos cookies

Got brekkie at Maison Dandoy, famed for their amazing waffles and speculoos treats:

Me and my loved ones - fresh choc covered waffle and speculoos milkshake 😍

The REAL Manneken Pis(s)

And its street art counterpart 

Caught the train over to the beautiful city of Bruges:

Got a bit of italian at our hostel, mine was a four cheese pizza omnomnomnom:

Went for a boat ride along the canals:

I got to sit at the front of the boat with the driver, Bartolomé. He thought he was James Bond and he said I was his Bond girl. Tried to set me up with his son. He was great.

A few canals cruising snaps:

Warmed up with a bit of vin chaud, this was a goodie, well-spiced:

What a treat, two selfies in a row!

The Burg square - used to be the main town square but got pushed aside for a bigger one

^^Not a very good pic but it's the only one I took on our night walking tour of the city. There was a cool legend about the bridge, like there's a carving of a magic eel on it or something that told some sort of story haha wow I'm great at recalling stories.. 

This is what happens when you leave it for so long...

We got to see heaps of other cool buildings and bridges with interesting histories and a couple of windmills and it was all freeeee.

The tour ended with free beer!

I think this is a museum that used to be the house of a super rich and high-status family

Beautiful canals:

Lovely bridge

This is apparently the most taken photo, like, ever

Bought me some handmade Belgian choccy

Beer and burgers:

Our last Bruges venture was to the torture museum which was so cool:

This was my fave - eventually the rat would get so hungry it would have to eat its way out through the victim's body... uhhhhhggg

Comfy

Then when I got back home I finally watched In Bruges to reflect on my trip.

Glad I watched it afterwards though, otherwise I probably would have just wanted to visit places from the movie.

But yeah, I loved Belgium, even though it was just a short visit.

Bruges was of course very touristy but it's really just a beautiful medieval place with cool history, so there's not much happening there besides touristy stuff. 

You've just gotta give yourself over to it.

Yeah! So hopefully the next post won't have a 3 month gap again lol

Until then!

Madeleine xx