Author: Keith

Day sixteen – Bruges to home

Distance today – 589 km / 366 miles	Journey time – 7h 10m
Total trip distance – 4,391 km / 2,729 miles	Total journey time – 2d 18h 20m

A simple drive home today, taking the quickest route from Bruges to the Channel Tunnel, then onward to home. Nothing much to report other than we arrived in time to get the earlier train, so briefly grabbed warm croissant from the passenger terminal before jumping back in the car and heading over to the “large” vehicle queue which was short – meaning we were pretty close to the front of the train so go out quickly onto the UK roads.

A quick stop for fuel in Folkestone, then M&S at Bluewater to collect a few days of food (Ultimate Lasagne!) plus lunch, before we headed through the Dartford tunnel, around the M25 and up the M1. We were lucky the traffic was generally light and we arrived home by 4pm. Just a shame the road is full of idiots and bad drivers, very little of which we had experienced for the last 2 weeks!!

Well, that’s 4,391 km or 2,729 miles behind us, and a total of 2 days, 18 hours and 20 minutes behind the wheel. Excellent trip.

Day fifteen – Ghent to Bruges

Distance today – 46 km	Journey time – 0h 40m
Total trip distance – 3,802 km	Total journey time – 2d 11h 10m

A short hop from Ghent to Bruges today, before the long drive home. We woke to heavy rain in Ghent, but nevertheless decided a run would be a good idea. Jo plotted a route which was a one-way run, a tram back and then collection of breakfast from a bakery we had found the day before.

The run was flat – 11m of elevation in 3.5 miles…no wonder it only took just over 30 minutes. The only point of note, other than how wet we got, was someone herding a flock of sheep through the city. No idea where they were going from or to as there was no obvious place for them to graze, but they were being moved across some pretty major roads. The tram back arrived quickly as we sheltered from the rain under the stop’s canopy, then we found the bakery which turned out had a rather nice selection of chocolates and cakes. We opted for pastries – almond, pecan, chocolate and raisin – which we ate back in the hotel after showering.

The short drive to Bruges was also extremely wet. Once we found the hotel and parked the car, we discovered it had just 5 rooms and was beautifully decorated. Everything was going well, we readied for a walk and went back downstairs and were offered a glass of something (we chose Belgian beer) and a small plate of meat and cheese as a welcome.

Then it began to go horribly wrong. First they asked what time we wanted breakfast – we’d not ordered it as we had to leave early and didn’t see the point as we’d easily pick up something en-route. That confused the lady who was looking after us. I checked my email (from when I booked 6 months ago) and found I had selected the breakfast and parking options, so I let the lady know and suggested a suitable time for breakfast. Then I got a WhatsApp from someone else related to the hotel (who wasn’t in the hotel at the time) saying we’d not ordered breakfast or parking and that our room was already discounted. It was quite rude actually, though could have just been a language barrier. He then barraged me with messages (whilst I was sat in the hotel!) saying I’d not paid for the room either. I definitely had. I then spent 10 minutes trying to get the credit card statement from April to prove to this absolute buffoon that I’d paid for the room. Eventually I found it and messaged him a screenshot. He then took 30 minutes to check his own records, found we’d paid and apologised. Too bloody late, mate. He offered a bottle of prosecco as an apology, but frankly their customer service was woeful and just plain rude. He should have recorded our payment when received. Fail.

Castelsuites Bruges – never stay there. We won’t be again, which is a shame because if you remove the apes from the equation it’s a lovely place to stay.

So, a wander around Bruges. We followed another guided tour itinerary, this one took us in duplicated loops – perhaps to make those who did pay think that Bruges is a lot bigger than it is, and have a lot more bridges than it does (and it has a lot!) Our summary was simple – Ghent is a LOT nicer (though we didn’t find a duck shop in Ghent).

Whilst wandering we had a waffle with chocolate and strawberries, and bought some chocolates to try back at the hotel.

Then it was time for dinner. We’d pre-booked a restaurant the other side of the city which got great reviews, but decided to Uber there and back as we were tired after our run and extended and duplicated walk around Brugge (I was on 20,000 steps, Jo 22,000 by this point). Dinner at Cezar (rated second in Brugge) was fantastic – marrow bone to start, followed by venison stew and vol-au-vent with frites and croquettes, then crème brulée to finish, with Belgian beer of course!

Our second rest day, so no driving – the car remained in the underground car park all day. We weren’t eating in this hotel for breakfast as the choice in Ghent was likely to be extensive, so we wandered into town looking for something suitable on the way to a day of sightseeing. We’ve learned that decaf coffee anywhere outside the UK is just trash, but the hot chocolates we found for breakfast were exceptional.

The plan for the day was to buy a tourist pass which gained us entry to numerous paid attractions, and free use of the water taxi and all land-based public transport. After collecting these (which took a while as the chap in Tourist Information was very keen we took all of his maps despite already having them. Once we got away from him, we headed to the Gravensteen, Ghent’s castle. Remarkably tidy and well maintained, there was lots to look at from the usual crenelations, to a torture dungeon, a display of weaponry, and a “secreet” bunker used by the Nazis. Worth a visit.

Next stop was a walk through the streets of Paters Hol, a very pretty area which contained residential properties and restaurants, taking us back to the main tourist area.

We then headed to “graffiti street”, which quite obviously was a street with walls covered in graffiti. Much of it had been painted over in readiness for fresh artwork to be applied, but some remained and was definitely Halloween themed. Either side of the street we found small shops selling various things.

From here we walked to St-Baafskathedral, Ghent’s cathedral. Not quite the scale of Koln’s cathedral the day before but more ornate, and in the back was a famous painting by Reuben and a very detailed altar piece comprising of numerous paintings depicting a religious scene of some kind. It was intricate in its quality, and vibrantly coloured despite its obvious age.

We kept going, onward to the Belfort, a huge tower which you could climb for an aerial view of Ghent. The good news was it was a lift up and stairs down, with various displays of bell and chime-related things on each of 3 floors between the top and bottom. The main bell itself was chimed using a mechanism much like a music box, but on a much bigger scale. Each hole in the barrel was hand cut square, there were thousands of them.

Our final stop before lunch was a smaller church, but one that was lit with huge skylights. Lunch was simple – frites and mayonnaise.

After lunch we decided to take the water taxi, which was a hop-on-hop-off service. However we were just going to stay on for as long as we fancied, getting off and returning by tram – mostly to maximise the value of our tourist cards. The boat was nearly empty and we watched the city go by with only the captain telling us useful/useless information as we chugged along.

When we arrived at stop 4, St-Pieterskirk, he told us to all get off the boat and gave us a mini-guided tour of the outside of the very old monastery. It looked so interesting we decided to stay – a good decision, as the building was quite interesting, as was the photography exhibition inside (nowhere near as good at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year we visited almost 2 weeks before), and the fruit garden including mini-vineyard.

We then caught the tram back to the hotel, had coffee (which was actually very good) and cake whilst waiting for our room to be cleaned. After a short break we returned to somewhere in Paters Hol we’d seen earlier for dinner. Here we had Watervooi and beef stew, both local dishes.