Weekend getaway to Brugge

About a week ago or so, I went to Brugge for a weekend getaway with Rob and his friends Tino, Robert and Thomas. Rob has always been going on and on about how Brugge is the best city in Europe, so I was really looking forward to seeing it myself. The weekend started off with a pretty long drive from Almere (about 3 hours) to a huge holiday area in de Haan (outside of Brugge). Was pretty amazed with just how many small white houses they had put in one place. There was also shops, restaurant and even a small waterpark inside of the resort, I guess it was designed this way to keep guests from ever leaving 😛

Already the next morning we did leave the resort though (rebelious right?) and headed over to the beach, located about 15 minutes away by foot. I got to say this might just be the nicest beach I have ever been to.  For starters it was the largest sand beach I have ever seen (And I have been to southern Europe a lot), the sand was also really nice and soft and the water was amazing – just the right temperature. I really had no idea Belgium had beaches like this, but apparently the do. As the temperature was also 34 degrees this day I really felt as if I was further south than I was – guess there’s really no need to travel that far 🙂

We stayed at the beach more or less all day, before heading to central Brugge in the evening to check out the nightlife. Brugge looked awesome by night, most of the buildings lit up and belgium beer still tastes great 🙂

As we also wanted to see Brugge by day Rob, Tino and I headed back there the next day as well. The guys really wanted to climb the highest tower (nevermind that it was still well above 30 degrees out) and I didn’t want to be a partypooper so we headed to the tower and began climbing the 366 steps.

Because of the heat we had to take quite a few breaks and I heard other tourists complaining all the way up – but when we made it to the top we forgot all about it. The view was amazing and there was a breeze that felt like heaven after the steep staircases.

After walking around in Brugge for a little longer Rob and I headed back home, agreeing it had been a great weekend 🙂

Roadtrip: Brussel

As Ludvig wanted to see Belgium as well while he was visisitng, and I wanted to see Brussel, Rob, Ludvig and I did a roadtrip there. Living in a small country has it’s perks – the drive was only about 2 hours each way 🙂

Our first stop in Brussels was the Atomium, which is basicly a tower that looks like giant atoms. I hadn’t really heard about it that much and thought it was more of a statue thing – so when I saw the size of it I was rather impressed.

Inside the tower/balls/whatever we first took escalators between the side balls to check out pictures from the Brussel Expo. To get to the top ball we had to go all the way down again and take the elevator. On the very top level (above the observatory as well) there is a restaurant where we had lunch. What I especially liked, besides the view of course, about the restaurant was that it had both a cheap and a fancy menu. This way everyone can enjoy a meal on top of the atomium 🙂 Our next stop was miniEurope. I was a little annoyed that Norway wasn’t in it while both Denmark and Sweden were – but I guess that is due to us not joining the union.  At least we found a miniNetherlands for Rob:

We also wanted to make it to the Parlamentarium, that advertise being open from 7 to 7 every day. When we got there at 4.30 pm however, two very angry security guards told us that they closed at 5 and the last entry was 30 minutes before closing hours – newsflash: 4.30 IS 30 minutes before 5!

I really wanted to see this place, as I am curious about the EU and how it is run – but if this is the service level to expect there, I guess we were better of not going. The parlament building did, however look pretty impressive.

Our last stop was the old town and the Grand Place. After getting lost for about 2 hours entering a rather bad part of town, we eventually found our way by taking the metro back to where we started and walking in the complete opposite direction.

The Old city, and especially the Grand Place was really impressive, and made up for the part we experienced when getting lost. We had dinner in one of the old buildings surrounding the Grand Place, including Brussel Waffles for dessert – yummy! 😀