The land of beer and chocolate
One of my favourite mottos that carry me through life, is that variety is the spice of it. And so I've started to apply it to the way I plan my travelling too, and instead of just exploring one place when I go away, I'm starting to roll multiple places in to one trip. You may think this isn't doable on just a short city break but it worked out perfectly on our recent trip to Belgium! Even with the Easter bank holiday making flights more expensive, there were some good deals to Brussels (pro tip, Brussels airlines still includes a small suitcase in the standard fare so you don't have to pay extra for baggage like you do on ryanair, easyjet, etc). However, I've had loads of recommendations for Bruges and so when I saw it was only an hour away on the train, it seemed like the perfect multi-centre city break plan.
Even though the flight was only a hop, skip ad a jump away, the Friday actually ended up being a pretty long day of travelling; drive to Manchester, flight to Brussels, taxi to the train station, train to Bruges, taxi to the hotel. But the hotel was certainly a sight for sore eyes when we did arrive; it was gorgeous! It was technically a luxury B&B, which is a little different for us (Ollie is very particular about hotels) but Mansion9Bruges was more luxurious than a lot of hotels we've stayed in. The room was incredible and absolutely massive! I mean, how often have you had a sauna seat in a your bathroom?
Because we'd had a long day travelling, we just had a few hours chilling and then headed out for the evening. It wasn't overly warm in Belgium (ironically cooler there than back at home) so I dressed accordingly in brown leather pants, 70s printed bardot top and strappy black shoes. My first impressions of Bruges were great and the main square was super pretty! Although I'm glad I trusted google reviews rather than our own impressions for the restaurants, as we could've happily picked any of the ones in that square based on looks alone, but all the reviews put them at like 2 stars?! So we went off the beaten track a little and found a very cute little candlelit place called Surf & Turf (a more respectable 4.2 stars). The food was amazing - the prawns were like the size of lobsters!
The next day we woke up to beautiful blue skies and so we headed out to explore Bruges, where we planned to spend pretty much the whole day before heading to Brussels in the evening. This time, the pretty views outweighed the bad reviews (poet and didn't know it) with the restaurants in the main square, so we stopped off for breakfast. Contrary to popular belief, I feel that breakfast is the least important meal of the day, so I didn't mind if it was average! Naturally we both got waffles because we'd been in Belgium more than 12 hours by this point and hadn't had one yet! We also started the day with a hot beverage (lattes) and an alcoholic beverage (beer for Ollie, aperol spritz for me) each because that, boys and girls, is what we call ~balance~.
We hit up a few of the touristy places next (Market Square, Belfort, Basilica of the Holy Blood) and the weather had clouded over by this point so I was glad I somewhat dressed for cooler weather. I'd gone for a trench coat wardrobe for Belgium; Saturday was skinny jeans, blue pinstripe off-the-shoulder shirt (it's actually designed like that because I have no idea how influencers contort normal shirts into other styles), white trainers and dark green bag. And sunglasses, because I'm an optimist.
Next we headed to the 2be beer wall, which was actually much more of an experience than I realised from researching beforehand! I figured it was just a wall to get photos by, but they had a massive bar area, outdoor terrace and shop, so we decided to stay and sample the goods (it was only polite). We tried a couple of the local beers, then got drawn in by the coolest glass ever (the beer was mediocre but the glass was worth it), then did a little tasting board with 4 local ones, all of which were fab. It ended up being the perfect way to spend an afternoon!
We continued our walking tour (rosary quay and a couple more churches) and grabbed some lunch along the way because we were a little worse for wear after all the beer; Belgian beer is much stronger than most! And that was the end of our time in Bruges, as we then grabbed our luggage and headed to catch the train. I'd say it was definitely long enough to see everything we wanted, but equally we could've found more to do if we had longer there. But anyone considering a similar trip, it's worth bearing in mind that you can definitely do Bruges in a day.
Our next hotel, the Hotel Indigo, was lovely but a LOT smaller than what we'd had the night before. Plus it won absolutely zero points for practicality; the bathroom was barely big enough to swing a cat and they'd done what so many hotels do with their lighting and focussed on aesthetic rather than use. How do you want me to successfully do my makeup by a wire caged lamp please?
Despite the impractical lighting, I managed to get ready for the evening! This time in black bodysuit, leopard print satin skirt, black strappy shoes and Soar lipstick (one that ironically Ollie's mum bought me without noticing the shade name was the same as their surname). We did a bit of restaurant research before heading out and again, Belgium in general seems to have a problem with low rated places as it was the same story in Brussels as in Bruges. And then due to our lack of planning, when we did go to some that were meant to be nice, they were fully booked. We started to get nervy after the second or third place, but ended up at a lovely Italian called Ricotta & Parmesan, where we shared an amazing pizza and pasta combo.
The next day, I was super excited about as we'd booked onto a beer and chocolate tour at the recommendation of my friend Andrea. There were a few available online, but we went with the Hungry Mary one as it was really well rated and sounded like you got the most on it. But even with high expectations, the whole day really blew me away! We got so many samples (beer and chocolate alike, I'll get on to that though), learnt so much about the chocolatiers and the city in general, and we even had a Brussels walking tour as part of it and saw a load of cool places. Interestingly, most people you speak to seem to prefer Bruges over Brussels, but Brussels really blew me away. Bruges was very quaint and pretty of course, but Brussels was just so cool. Loads of independent shops and galleries, and street art, and old pubs. It was everything rolled into one! Like on this tour, they specifically took us to cool, independent, or up-and-coming chocolate shops and they didn't disappoint. Naturally, the chocolates at Pierre Marcolini were my favourites (because it's like the most expensive chocolate shop in all of Belgium), but we sampled so many cool ones including a cayenne pepper one, and one with a pure whiskey shot inside!
As I mentioned, we seemed to get a really comprehensive walking tour out of the day too! We went to the remains of the old wall, we saw mannequin pis, and then ended up in the main square. My mum and dad had been to Brussels and were disappointed that the main attraction was an underwhelming statue of a boy having a pee. But we got all the context of the folk stories and the fact that it's actually supposed to be funny, and the fact that the city dress him up for various occasions, and suddenly he wasn't so disappointing. Our tour guide was so funny and I loved learning more about the city. Even without all that though, the main square is enough just on visual impact to really blow you away. I may even go as far to say I've never seen a prettier main square anywhere. All the gold! Especially in the sunshine it was simply beautiful.
Then it was on to the beer tasting portion of the day! There was actually a lot to learn on that front too, and I loved that we got taken to some really cool pubs like hidden down little alleyways and stuff; places we probably wouldn't have found on our own. We got to try a nice variety, with sour beers, local beers and even a quadruple which was 12%! We got food included too so we had a variety of cheese, meats, fries and bread to soak up some of the alcohol.
It was our final night in Brussels and since it was a Sunday, I went with a casual outfit of flared blue jeans, black strappy shoes and this cute top which was a dupe of one that was popular at Zara in the summer. We again spent a fair amount of time scrolling on opentable for restaurants, before eventually ending up at Ginette au Secours. They'd pretty much ran out of everything so our choices were limited but there were certainly no complaints with what we did end up with; the beef was amazing!
Monday was home time for us but our flight was an evening one so we still had some time to explore before waving goodbye. Naturally, I couldn't resist another opportunity to soak in the beauty of the main square so we headed there for some brunch and our usual routine of a hot drink and a proper drink. Well, we were on our holidays.
After that, it started to rain (hard) so we ended our walking tour there and had a wander around the COMICS Figurines Museum, before finishing up with a lovely dinner and one last portion of frites, and then we headed home. It felt like we had such a perfectly organised trip and combining Bruges and Brussels was definitely a good call. Brussels ended up being the favourite for both me and Ollie, so I'm glad we split it that we had longer there and just a short time in Bruges. So the saying was right; variety is the spice of life, and of Belgium.
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