Fenya's Travels

I watched the film ‘In Bruges‘ last night to compare it to my own experience there. The film really helps to show off how beautiful the town is, it has actually made me want to go back and do it again! The irish hitmen in the movie stayed in Relais Bourgondisch Cruyce Hotel, I must admit I walked past this place and took photo’s next to it – I noticed it was a lovely place and actually considered it to be where I would want to stay on my next visit. It is a 4 star boutique hotel with stunning views, the rooms range from €185-€450.

I stayed in Bruges on the 26th – 29th August 2012,  it was a budget trip and I went with my boyfriend and another couple. Next time I visit I would like to stay somewhere on the canal, I stayed in an ‘Ibis’ hotel – it cost me £41 a night for the room.

The Ibis was a short walk from many of the attractions in Bruges, I did so much walking over the 3 days my leg muscles were in pain at the end of the trip! Next time I visit I will definitely consider the horse/boat tours around Bruges instead of doing it all on foot.

Below are some of the photos I took on my first night in Bruges:

Opposite the entrance to the Ibis hotel there is a well-known vegetarian restaurant called ‘De Bron’ we went there on our second day for some brunch.

I found the entrance to De Bron quite un-inviting… It looked like a house from the outside and you had to ‘buzz’ yourself in – It took us a while to realize this, we had to watch another couple do it first. We then waited about 20 minutes to get a seat, due to brilliant trip-adviser reviews we were really looking forward to our meals.

However we didn’t understand their language and had no idea that there was actually only one meal available until we sat down, unfortunately my boyfriend and I didn’t like what was on offer so we only purchased tea and apple juice. The couple we were with ordered a medium and large dish.

De Bron managed to make salad and vegetables look extremely tasty, something I could never do! Although in all honesty I felt the restaurant was extremely overrated… the decoration, customer service and staff were all nothing special. Though, should I really judge considering I have never been to a vegetarian restaurant before? Probably not. Below are some pictures I took in De Bron:

De Bron offers a wide range of tea as you can see from the picture above, for this assortment it only costs €2.50.

The above photograph shows the apple juice I purchased.

De Bron stands for “the source”, dishes there are available in small, medium and large – the picture above shows the ‘large’ dish that my brother purchased. De Bron also offers many soups including ‘pumpkin’ which I have heard is delicious!

Below are some more photos I took during my second day in Bruges:

One place I definitely recommend you visit in Bruges is ’2be Moodshopping’, it contains a well-known ‘beer wall’ in a 15th century building. 2be Moodshopping also has a beautiful terrace offering great views over the canal, below are some of the photo’s I took whilst I was there:

According to the 2be Moodshopping website the top 5 drinks to be drinking on their terrace at the moment are: Kwak which is a huge 8.4%, Augustijn (7%), Kriek Boon (4%), Rodenbach (5.2%) and finally St.Brugge Bruin (6.3%). My favourite out of those five was the ‘Kriek Boon’ it was a sweet cherry flavoured beer.

My favourite restaurant whilst I was in Bruges was called ‘strijdershuis‘, I went here twice – for lunch and an evening meal.

The first night I was in Bruges we wanted to experience an evening meal, we were on a budget so it was difficult at first to find somewhere suitable. The Strijdershuis was hidden compared to the rest of the restaurants, it was candle lit and had barely any customers. We sat inside and were served immediately, the lady that served us was very friendly and although she didn’t speak much English she knew just enough to take our order. The starter of garlic bread came almost straight after the drinks were served, the portion (although it wasn’t mentioned in the menu) was large enough to share between the 4 of us and was €5.00.

I had a pasta carbonara and I have to say it was one of the best pasta carbonara’s I have ever had, it was also a perfect price of only €10.50! The bill from our evening meal came to €94.80 (£77.25) for the 4 of us. Some pictures of Strijdershuis are shown below:

The second visit to this restaurant was during the day, we had drinks and toasties. They have a wide range of drinks there and at a great price compared to the other places we had visited in Bruges.

There are many museums and art galleries in Bruges, because we were on a tight budget we didn’t get to visit the museums. However we did get to see a lot of stunning art!

One thing you saw a lot of in Bruges was chocolate! There were many chocolate and sweet shops in Bruges, I also noticed that wherever I went they seem to have sold out of waffles – A chocolate covered waffle is now on my Bruges to-do list!

Bruges is a beautiful place, full of experiences, surprises and history! As they say in the movie ‘it’s a fairytale town’.

Related articles

• Bruges: The Newbie Traveler in Bruges: ‘Train’quility and Milk Chocolate (jaunted.com)
• The Beautiful Dijver Canal in Bruges (satnavandcider.wordpress.com)