Beautiful Bruges

Up early again this morning and checked out of my hotel after breafkast.  Then headed to the Antwerp train station and put my bag in the locker for the day. Jumped on the train to Bruges and arrived 1.5 hours later.  Found the info centre, got a map and set off.  Decided to just wander at a leisurely pace and photograph what I saw...

Bruges is the Capital of Belgium and located in the North. The historic city centre is a Unesco World Heritage site. Along with other canal based cities like Amsterdam it's known as the Venice of the North. It was very impressive and lovely houses with cobblestoned streets.

Brightly coloured doors...

St Saviour's Cathedral. To get to here I was told to just walk toward the spire and eventuallly I'll find it.  I did indeed. 

Very impressive inside...

This is the spire of the Church of Our Lady which wasn't far from the first one...

Equally impressive inside, but under restoration..

Outside weary tourists were resting their feet. I loved the trees being trained to grow along wires.

 

I carried on walking around, but not always sure what I was seeing.  Couldn't find this one on a map!

The spire again of the Church of Our Lady...

I decided to take a friends advice to do a half hour trip on the canal, which would allow me to see more than I would in 3 hours of walking. She was absolutely right...  It was a great tour - but even though I had an English boat - I couldn't hear anything as I was at the back!

Back up on land again-  I wandered around the shops. Every second one was chocolate. That's the Belfry in the distance.

I decided to walk along the canal where the boat had taken us, just to get a few photos. It's a really pretty place.

The reason I wanted to was to get this photo of this amazing window with the dog curled up on a cushion. What a life - I would trade in an instant! So long as I didn't have to eat dog food!

I headed up to the main square to find an organ grinder..

Gorgeous Square...

Decided to stop and have a glass of champagne and rest my foot! Cheers!

While sitting and drinking I realised that if I didn't scarper, I'd miss my connection back to Amsterdam, so rushed back to the train station and got there with just two minutes to spare!  Fortunately the distances aren't great!  On the way to the station though I took some grab shots...

Waiting at the station...

I then managed to get my bag out of the locker and find the correct platform for the train to Amsterdam.  I think I'm really getting hte hang of trains now!  Arrived back in Amsterdam about 8pm. What a great 3 days - Belgium and Luxembourg are fabulous.

Antwerp in a Day

I caught an early train from Amsterdam and headed down to Antwerp for a few days while my daughter worked.  This is the first time I've travelled around Europe on my own, and had to keep my wits about me to make sure I got on correct trains/trams etc...  I arrived in Antwerp at about 10am, wandered out of the station, read the instructions on how to get to the hotel, and jumped on the correct tram and even got off at the correct stop - although that was more good luck than anything else!

I found my hotel within several minutes, checked in, dumped my bag, and armed with the map the hotel gave me, set off to explore.  Initially I was going to just get the trams here there and everywhere but in the end I decided to walk. These are the sights I saw on my walk..

First up is the Royal Museum of Fine arts.  I didn't go in, decided to keep on walking...

Wide Streets with tram tracks down the middle.

Spring hasn't quite arrived with the trees still heavily pruned awaiting the green leaves to come...

Everywhere there were bikes, but probably not as many as in Amsterdam!

I loved the name of this restaurant...

I arrived in the market square to find.... Chocolates.  Every second shop was a chocolate shop with fine high quality Belgian Chocolate.  I tried one or two but they were expensive so didn't buy. Some didn't allow you to take photographs!

In the main square is the city hall.  Lots of people around, including a police presence.  I asked and was told that there was a delegation of five people talking to the mayor, and the others were waiting for them to come out of the talk.

The main square and the buildings around it.  The Australian flag was flying as they were expecting the Australian Ambassador to visit that day.

The Notre Dame Cathedral...

Inside it was very beautiful...

I particularly liked the name of this store...

I walked on to the MAS - Musseum Aan de Stroom.  Impressive brand new building and only newly opened. It was recommended that I visit.  There were exhibitions but I chose to only walk around the building inside.  There are escalators going up each floor around the outside.  The windows are plexiglass and it gave you wonderful views.  

This is up one set of escalors looking out to the front.  The Plexiglass is curved all away around...

After going up 9 floors by escalator, the last floor was by stairs.  I loved that half way up, it told me I was 9.5 floors up!

From the top you could see for miles in all directions.  From here I could see some of the old buildings I visited on my walk..  They had little round cut outs in the glass where you can poke your camera lens out of to get the best photo with the glass in front.

After my long walk, I caught the train back to the main station and got a 'disabled' ticket into the zoo!  My deafness comes in handy at times!  The zoo gardens were beautiful and spring was definitely in the air.  The grass was beautifully mowed but you weren't allowed on it!

White Magnolia trees...

Beautiful planters full of spring bulbs..

A lot of the animals I hadn't seen before - so here's a few...  Firstly the Golden Poison Frog..  the enclosure was 'closing' to the public (end of day) so these were hurried and some didn't turn out. Kicking myself that I didn't check the image before moving on.

Another one but I didn't take the photo of the name, so I've forgotten already!!

The meercat I have seen before but I am quite pleased with this image so putting it up anyway!

A lovely Heron - this actually was wild, and not part of the zoo.  It was waiting by the seals, obviously about to do some easy fishing when the seals got fed!

More spring blossoms!

The rare and endangered Amur Tiger...

And finally the Yellow Mongoose of which I've never seen one before!

After the zoo my foot was agony, so I popped into the supermarket and got a cheap meal, caught the train back to the Hotel, ate dinner,  did some photos and hit the sack early. Antwerp - was stunning - I really enjoyed exploring the city.