In Brugge

I would venture to say that Brugge/Bruges was one of the places that has been on the top of our list of places to visit.  People that have been there highly recommended it.  However, we also found a really neat bed and breakfast that was in an old castle.  So, we have been postponing our trip until we could stay at this B&B.  Well, we finally found availability for Valentine's Day and finally made our trip to Brugge.

Brugge is a fantastic medieval town that was very rich and powerful until their main trading river silted up.  This essentially froze the buildings and town in time, and there is a small, concentrated town jam packed with beautiful old buildings.

We took the train from Amsterdam to Antwerp and then took the train North to Brugge.  After getting a bus around the center of the town, we got off at the wrong stop and walked the rest of the way to the Kasteel ten Berghe.  The caretaker showed us to our awesome room.

After a nice sleep and some great breakfast (including speculoos paste - lekker!) we borrowed bikes from the B&B and found our way into the center of the town just a few kilometers away.  But not before we got a nice view of our accommodation for the weekend.

Kasteel ten Berghe

The bike ride into town was typical for Northern Europe: cold, light rain and the wind was always against us.  But, what we found in town was worth it:

Canal still frozen a bit

View from the Grote Markt

 As we were wandering around the city, we walked from the Grote Markt to the Burg and found the Holy Blood Basilica tucked into the corner.  There were two floors to this church - the bottom floor was seemingly carved out of the stone around it, and the upper floor was covered, literally every inch, with beautiful Burgundian frescoes and paintings.  In addition, we happened to arrive just before 11:30am, which important mostly because the "veneration" begins at this time.  This church's biggest claim to fame is that it holds a vial that contains a few drops of Jesus' blood as he was washed by Joseph.  The veneration is a time that you can come up just a few inches from the vial and pray.

Outside of the Holy Blood Basilica

 We continued our walking around the city and went into the beautiful Stadhuis

Stadhuis interior

Madonna and Child by Michelangelo

 We got lucky with a few nice people that took some pictures for us.  We had a lovely Valentine's Day, but crashed hard on the train on the way home given how much we packed into one weekend.