Bruges

Yesterday, the Eurostar rolled into Kings Cross at half past 9 in the evening. From our train, we dashed home for a quick change before heading out again to celebrate Halloween at a Dark Circus party. Today, I did not emerge from bed until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Bruges, you broke me.

Beautiful, so pretty, surreal and at times almost like we were walking through a film set. I think it's safe to say, we loved Bruges! Already a huge fan of Belgium and the Belgians, my love has grown ever stronger thanks to three days of amazing beers, scrumptious food, Autumnal perfection, aimless wandering and the friendliest of people.

We set off in the early hours of Thursday morning. I hadn't really considered that we would be leaving in such early hours that trains would not yet be running. Fortunately, thanks to the powers of Gett, we ordered a a black cab (I'd hardly expect to be able to flag one down along Seven Sisters road itself, let alone my road!) and were on our way in good time.

As always, check in at the Eurostar terminal was quick and easy (although I did almost lose my fur to the security machine) and we were soon sitting down to enjoy a breakfast of tea, croissant & Croque Monsieur (getting in the mood).

Having packed reading material in the hope of being productive on the train journey, it was actually almost entirely spent sleeping. I find it funny to think I never used to be able to sleep on any form of journey yet now I almost always find my head doing the embarrassing bobbing thing.

When we arrived in Brussels, memories of journeys to and from Pukkelpop came flooding. The connection to a train for Bruges was incredibly simple (why are everyone elses train systems so much better and easier to use than ours?). As is usually the case, we accidentally found ourselves in First Class which was orange and brown and brilliant! I love how other parts of Europe are sort of behind but still totally working the dated look.

Unlike with resort holidays, city breaks always provide an opportunity for feeling more grounded. As opposed to the horror coach journey where you twist and turn along precarious roads, a train journey that you have had to figure out by yourself gives you a better sense of place. You see how one place is connected to another, you experience the simple but marked differences between home and abroad and you encounter local people. I love train travel!

Only an hour to Bruges, we were soon standing outside the station and I was realising my Google Map reliance. One of those 'mum and dad would have thought of that' moments came as I became aware that I had forgotten to find directions from the station to the hotel. All I had to go on was that it was '600 metres from Bruges Railway Station'. But in which direction?

We did end up paying an extortionate amount for internet abroad just to figure out where we were going and then agreed that we would figure out all further directions on hotel Wifi ahead of needing them.

It really was the shortest walk to the hotel, through piles and piles of leaves. I must say that we absolutely chose the best time of year to visit Bruges - the Autumn trees were looking gorgeous!

Our hotel was a barge on the canal. When we'd seen it online, we loved the concept and it looked very sweet in pictures so we booked! Despite knowing that a canal was water, it was still slightly alarming to find life jackets at the end of the bed as opposed to towels twisted into elegant swans. I'm still not entirely sure whether they were for effect or genuine use. Needless to say, we didn't need them.

Only 11 o'clock by this point, we headed straight out to get our bearings and have a little explore! As seemed to be the theme of our few days, our wandering was guided by things that looked pretty or intriguing which actually seemed to be most of Bruges to be honest!

As well as being 600m away from the station, we were about 200m away from entering the city across a bridge that crossed the 'Lake of Love'. From the lake, we then found ourselves wandering through a nunnery complete with tree-houses because, as always seems to be the case, it turns out we were in Bruges for their Contemporary Art and Architecture Triennial. We naively wondered whether they were huts for the nuns to find peace within... never mind how they would have climbed into them.

Majorly distracted by the endless supply of pretty buildings and canals, we finally found time for lunch in the late afternoon. Although there were a whole host of restaurants around every square, they were all so similar it was hard to decide where would be best to go. So we deviated and ended up finding a sweet and cosy restaurant down an alley. Here we ordered grilled salmon and a king prawn skewer which we then watched being flame grilled on an open fire in the middle of the restaurant. Oh my gosh. Of course, we had a side of 'frites' to share and our first Belgian beer to wash it down. I went for a Haacht Mystic white beer with lime which went down very well indeed!

We could hardly believe that we'd been in Belgium for so long before our first beer had been consumed. So we resolved that we would avoid further distraction from prettiness and dive into the next bar that came our way (and appealed. We are fussy after all).

Thinking we'd found the one a short walk from the restaurant, I then saw a sign outside one a little further along advertising jazz & blues to accompany our drinking. Well of course that appealed a great deal, so in we ventured. Dark wood, stained glass, instruments mounted on the walls and a good taste in music, we found ourselves to be very at home. This time I had a Bourgogne des Flandres, a sweet dark beer which was very tasty indeed and turned out to be very popular in Bruges!

Another 'mum and dad would have thought of that' moment arose when we had both realised upon unpacking that we were without travel adaptor. I think I've been spoilt by good hostels with USB adaptors the last few times I've travelled so hadn't even thought of bringing one! Nevertheless, it was pretty crucial if I wanted to take photos, so we had to go on a mission to find one.

In any usual city, this 'mission' would have been no such thing. Nevertheless, in Bruges, while souvenir shops were aplenty, trying to find a basic tourist-esque corner shop that would offer travel necessities was tricky. Eventually, we were directed by an incredibly helpful and highly animated sales assistant in Carrefour towards a shop that can only be described as Argos come WH Smiths come HMV. Here we found what we needed and felt reassured that photos (and music and accessing Wifi to figure out directions) would indeed be a possibility for the remainder of our trip.

Still without much of a clue about where we were or wanted to go, we let our feet take us for some more aimless wandering. This time, the lure of canals got us rather monumentally lost as upon later inspection of the map we realised we had almost come to the edge of the city and may well have found ourselves at the sea.

Fortunately, we realised as we encountered far more 'local' looking bars and shops (and people) that we were definitely going the wrong way so turned around and headed back towards tourism. Once on the right track, we decided it was time to find another beer. On yet another square we found a modern bar with an extensive enough menu. By this time it was getting cold and having been a bit lost we were feeling rather sorry for ourselves so in we went. Always a fan of Hoegaarden, I spied a Rosee on the menu which was extremely pleasant and refreshing!

Bruges sure know how to maximise their customer satisfaction. Free WiFi almost everywhere we went made finding our way from one place to the next a lot easier. While in this bar, we returned to Trip Advisor to see where else we should frequent before we headed back to the hotel. Here we discovered a place called The Vintage. It was all in the name. We had to go!

One might have actually described The Vintage as a pub. Rammed full of memorabilia (including signage  from Pukkelpop; pang) and also home to the sweetest English Bulldog, we were feeling more at home than ever! Here, on the dark beer train but not wanting anything with too high a percentage by this point in the evening, I tried an Achel Bruin and we snacked on salami and cheese (some of which was obviously fed to the dog for a very impressive high five) for a light tea after such a late lunch before heading back to the hotel to bed.

After the most comfortable night's sleep, we awoke relatively bright and early to make the most of our only full day away. Admittedly, we'd managed to get a lot more out of our first day considering some of the morning was spent travelling, but we decided to be a little more directive about how we spent our time on the Friday.

On our way into the city this time we took a different route, through a pretty little park with benches that apparently looked like they could suddenly burst into life like they were in a Disney film. After such extensive wandering the day before, we definitely had a much better sense and awareness of direction which set us in good stead for making the most of the day.

The first plan we had was to climb to the top of the Belfry tower for a view over the city. So we joined a moving queue in order to ascend the 366 steps of pain. Fortunately, every 100 steps or so there was a point of interest in the form of a room where, once breath was caught, we discovered some Flemish history. We were particularly fortunate (not that everyone there agreed) to be in the room housing all of the bells when the clock struck 12 and they started playing It's a Long Way to Tipperary. If going up was a struggle, the real challenge came in the descent. Lots of side stepping and gripping on to pretty much anything for dear life, our legs were absolute jelly by the time we reached the bottom due both to muscle re-awakening and sheer nerves. The view was definitely worth it though (as a view always is)!

Climbing so many steps was thirsty work. Carrefour to the rescue again as we bought cold drinks with which we then sat in the square below the Belfry to participate in a spot of people watching and to rest. It was a milder day on the Friday and unlike the day before, there was no sign of mist but some hints of blue sky! It was as we sat that we realised we'd actually done the one thing we wanted to do that required planning. The rest of the day was therefore free for more wandering in alternative directions.

Having enjoyed our restaurant experience the previous day, we headed back to the area to see what else was about and landed outside a bar boasting 21 draft beers. Here I had a Steen Brugge Dubbel Bruin. I have to say it was my least favourite beer. For me it had an almost mushroomy after-taste which, as much as I love mushrooms, was a little disconcerting.  The owner of the bar was incredibly friendly and chatted with us for a while. He took great pride in his bar, particularly the set up of an enormous copper pipe which ran above the bar from which the taps hung. It was pretty special!

A late lunch time again, we had decided that we would go for something lighter today so that we could treat ourselves to a sit down evening meal. Having turned again to Trip Advisor for baguette recommendations, we had actually come across a bagel 'salon' boasting a whole range of fillings. Now I know a bagel is not exactly Belgian, but it seemed a novel place nonetheless, so we wandered in a new direction to find it.

It should have just been a quick fifteen minute walk to the shop, but yet again we were distracted by all sorts of alleys and squares, markets and shops. Unfortunately this meant that by the time we arrived at the salon, it was closed. Now so used to London opening hours, I think we take for granted that other places work in the same way when in fact hours are very different everywhere but London.

By this time, it was almost acceptable to call lunch dinner anyway, so we headed back to a pretty little square that we had just walked through to find something to eat. Always one to give local cuisine a go, I tried Flemish stew (not the rabbit variety, I drew the line there) which I washed down with a Belle-Vue Kriek which was literally like cherryade; so sweet!

After another full on day and full of tasty food (and beer), we were flagging. Before heading back to the hotel, we made a stop at another bar we had spotted just by The Vintage which had another impressive selection of beers on tap. Here I returned to Bourgogne des Flandres to be on the safe side. Drinks drunk, we couldn't help but head back into The Vintage which was much busier and full of life on a Friday night than it had been the previous evening. We had more salami and cheese (although the dog seemed to be on his best behaviour with so many people around, so no feeding for tricks this time) and I indulged in a couple of mugs of mint green tea which arrived on a silver platter complete with doily. Amazing!

Our final day in Bruges and having taken full advantage of breakfast for the last time, we packed up ready to head out one last time.

Saturday was our souvenir shopping day and we then planned to spend some time either in Ghent or Brussels before returning home in the evening. I don't want to write too much here for fear of giving away the gifts we returned with and who they were intended for, but needless to say Bruges is a great place for finding stocking fillers and slightly unusual gifts that might not be found elsewhere. I did treat myself to a couple of vintage postcards from an 'old curiosity shop' which literally consisted of endless boxes of postcards, vintage photographs, coins, beer mats, everything Tintin and slightly odd posters of very young royals. What I love most about them is that actually, much of Bruges is pretty much untouched, so besides for the antique car in view, it still looks almost the same as it did when the postcards were first made.

Saturday was much busier than Thursday and Friday had been so this time we really made a beeline for where we needed to go which meant we were done by lunchtime. After such an enormous breakfast, I wasn't quite ready for lunch, but we indulged again in salami and cheese (with olives too this time) and there's always room for beer so I had a small Hoegaarden. We sat outside in the sun, watched the world go by and found ourselves feeling grateful that we'd chosen to visit when we had. Not only for the beautiful Autumnal colours but also for the peace of a week day.

Although the train passed through Ghent, for practical reasons of baggage (particularly after our souvenir spree), we decided to explore Brussels for the afternoon. When we arrived back at the station, we found lockers to leave our luggage and we were off!

Before Bruges, Brussels was my only experience of a Belgian city and I was very much a fan! Interestingly though, after being in the much smaller, far less busy city of Bruges for a few days, Brussels was a bit of a shock to the system, particularly as in order to walk from the train station to the centre, you have to pass along roads lined with leering men that smell slightly suspicious (the roads, not the men).

Actually, once we were in the Grand Square, I remembered why I loved it so much. Last time I was there, most of the buildings had been covered in scaffolding for restoration but this time they were almost all exposed and we were certainly wowed! We had come into the square via old Mannequin Pis who was as underwhelming as ever, although he was wearing some sort of uniform including trousers yet was still managing to 'pis' so that was quite entertaining!

While Bruges had not presented very many places that could really be defined as a 'pub', I remembered finding one in particular in Brussels before where Happy Hour was basically Happy Day and while inside, you could be forgiven for forgetting you were abroad. However for some reason (I'm going to blame it on tiredness), my sense of direction was appalling by this point so we ended up in another bar-restaurant where I finally had a pot of mussels with fries washed down with another Mystic, this time of the peach variety.

Before we knew it, it was time to make our way back to the station for check in again to Eurostar.

Ever since our return, time has mainly been spent mourning all of the things that made those three days so glorious. Belgium is a truly special place and a visit to Bruges was a truly beautiful way to spend the end of half term.

Fortunately, in December, I return to Belgium to visit Christmas markets in Antwerp so it's not long until I get to return which excites me very much indeed. I definitely need to go back to Bruges one day though. So until next time!

Barcelona

Over half term, a spontaneous trip was made to Barcelona. It's a city I've been wanting to visit for a while, and it was a lot of fun, but it wasn't quite what I expected!

When ma and pa had paid a visit and returned with relatively mediocre reviews, my response was that it must be a city more suited to 'young people', and I'd say that's probably quite accurate; the issue is that as 'young people' go I'm not all that young, at least not in the mind so in terms of my likes. Barcelona was fun, really fun, but it's not exactly the most attractive place in general.

If Gaudi does it for you then you might disagree, but my argument would be that beyond his quirky creations, there isn't a lot else that stands out to the eye. I admit I was a pretty huge cynic when it came to Le Sagrada - not only did it not blow me away, but I then found myself to be concerned about the cost of it all, and less than impressed to think that by the time one side is 'complete', the scaffolding will probably still remain in order to repair the crumbling mess that the other side will become. Admitedly, we didn't go inside (so there's reason number 1 to go back), so maybe I missed a trick.

Now I've seen a lot of it (mainly from the comfort of an open-top bus), it's good to know where I would return to if I were to go back. This time I feel that there was a lot of weeding through the rubbish in order to find some nice bits.

Barcelona was beautiful for the fact that it is a city with a proper beach (although for some reason (please don't judge me) I did not know this), which is something I don't think I've really experienced before. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side and most of the time the rain came down, but we did manage one morning and one evening on the beach and both were lovely (and the morning even resulted in tanlines - YES skin)!

Another place I could happily spend a sunny day was Park Güell, one of Gaudi's designs. The view was pretty spectacular, and it was nice to see greenery and colour (perhaps it was just because of the rain, but Barcelona seemed to be lacking in grass, in exchange for an abundance of grey)!

I'm not entirely sure how or where to begin, as before we had even taken off, there was drama aplenty caused by a case of 'mistaken suitcase identity', which meant enlisting most of the staff at the Duty Free and the security at Gatwick to track down an elderly lady (actually it turned out she wasn't even that elderly, so we're not entirely sure what her excuse was) who was clearly very confused (to put it nicely). I must say, they were pretty on point and managed to track how down in next to no time. Once she had sloped back, head hung in shame, to return the suitcase, we headed for the champagne and caviar bar to calm the nerves and delighted in seafood platters. It's times like these that I totally condone being at the airport in plenty of time!

We were staying in a hostel in Barcelona, in a girls dorm because we thought it would be quite fun... upon our arrival at about 11pm, the room was in darkness and EVERYONE WAS IN BED!? So we snuck around, making our beds, trying to figure out under-bed lockers, and getting ready to venture out to meet a friend who happened to be in Barcelona at the same time as us (that was pretty exciting) to drink gin a-plenty.

Our first morning was spent on the beach, soaking up rays and trying not to get swept over by the current in the freezing cold sea! Once our tummies started to rumble and the sun went behind the clouds, we headed inland to a tapas bar that had been recommended to us by a friend of my friend. We were advised to get there as close to opening as possible, as it was very popular. It was also a little tricky to find, but thankfully we made it in what felt like perfect time, as although it was indeed already buzzing with people, there was a small space at the counter for us to prop ourselves up. We both marvelled at the selection of tapas, the atmosphere and the price of cava, and tried to imagine the existence of such a place in Hoxton. We couldn't. When the bill came, we were even more enthralled, as a bottle and two extra glasses of cava and several plates of AMAZING tapas had come to a mere €20! Obviously we made the unanimous decision that we would return!

From the tapas bar, we moved on to do a little sight-seeing. We had been invited to a DJ set in a location nearby that evening, so we decided first to scout out where we might have to head back to. We didn't find the exact location, but we found the general area, and figured it wouldn't be too hard to find later... oh how I laugh now.

We wandered the streets relatively aimlessly. By this point it was trying to rain, and we had to head back out quite early so didn't have long before we'd need to return to the hostel to make attempts at sprucing up so we wouldn't stick out like sore thumbs at a Marc Jacobs party. Of course, real rain always has marvellous timing, and on our way back the heavens really opened! The Brit in me was armed with a waterproof sports jacket (yep, I own one of those), but the lashings of horizontal rain were still enough to soak through my bottom half. With such a tiny luggage allowance, 'evening outfits' had been left behind (although I had managed to squeeze in one pair of heels, which I would later regret), and at this point I feared that my ploy of turning day into night was not going to be appropriate if I was still soggy. [Un]fortunately, during the day we had had decided to go shopping anyway, as we weren't entirely sure that 'day to night' outfits were going to be quite enough for us to blend in... I hope my sarcasm is quite clear enough!

Shopping in Barcelona, home of Zara and Bershka was not at all bad. H&M, as always, provided plenty to choose from, but it was new shoes from Stradavarius (had to make a purchase, it's a shop named after a violin!?) that turned a day-time outfit into something a little more classy (that was until we were drenched having wandered around in the rain for an hour... more on that later). Thankfully, when in Europe, rain and warmth happen at the same time, so by the time I awoke from the nap that I just seemed to fall into as soon as I was on a bed, I was relatively dry!

It was recommended to me that while in Barcelona, squid ink paella had to be consumed. So we chose this evening to give it a go before funds ran too low! We found ourselves in a restaurant by the marina and close to the venue, where in addition to our squid ink paella (which, by the way, actually stains your mouth!), we also drank sangria and received complimentary champagne in flutes with insanely long stems; stems so long, in fact, that they had to be placed in a jar to stand up, and were not at all easy to drink from, as you (I) kept knocking the table and each time were (was) struck with fear that they would smash at any moment. The waiter really didn't seem to want us to leave, but we'd been advised to make a pretty early appearance at this party to benefit from the open bar, and were already an hour later than suggested.

Eventually we escaped his not so evil clutches, and went in pursuit of the party. I'm not entirely sure how to explain the debacle that prevailed. All I know is that Barcelona squares are confusing, and even the locals had no idea where we needed to be. So, we wandered the streets for AN HOUR, getting more and more bedraggled in the rain (which refused to stop, but instead turned into a pretty ferocious storm) and me feeling less and less like I wanted to make an appearance, in a desperate attempt to locate where we were meant to be. Extreme frustration thankfully subsided to masses of relief when at last we landed ourselves at the door (by which point most people were leaving, not arriving), and when faced with a mirror it transpired that I didn't even look anywhere near as bad as I felt, so that was quite a comfort. The venue in question was some sort of office space with pop-up bars and a roof terrace with beautiful views across the marina (well, we'd already got soaked through, why not continue the trend in the open air?). The footage of the advertising campaign on a big screen lit up the entire dance-floor, which was less satisfying, but it was a great set as always, and we made the most of it having finally arrived!

Before home we found ourselves in a bar for another 'foreign exchange', shall we say? This one was more short-lived; a taxi was hailed and bed happened.

The next morning saw our last full day in the city, and we decided we'd go in for the hop-on-hop-off open-top bus tour. I think we may have been slightly more fatigued than we realised, as although we were expecting to be leaping on and off, never mind hopping, we actually end up sat on the bus for about 5 hours, alighting once. Impressive - we certainly got value for money!

Our stop was at Park Güell, which I'm glad we did! Honestly, beyond La Sagrada, I'm not entirely sure where else we should have stopped... the view of everywhere from the bus was perfectly adequate, at least when the roof wasn't up to shelter us from the rain - red tarpaulin isn't so interesting, it has to be said.

By the time we got off for our final stop, our legs weren't entirely convinced they could remember how to work, but we did manage to wander back to the hostel, this time to find the lights on and loud American teens in the room... suddenly the dark and sleeping people didn't seem so bad.

Once the initial shock had subsided and we began to grow accustomed to the accents (I'm not saying we enjoyed them, I think it was just a case of them becoming easier to drown out somehow), we actually decided that we would accompany them and some more amenable Canadians on a night out organised by the hostel. Once suited and booted, down to the bar we went for our free shots to kick-start ourselves into going-out-mode (as I like to call it). The club in question was on the beach, and had such a good atmosphere. We had arrived at a time I would consider super early, so were a little concerned that it would be pretty dead, but in fact it turned out to be quite the opposite. We made a beeline for the bar upon our arrival (not to return as drinks were so expensive), and as soon as our drinks were finished, the dancefloor was packed and we were sorted for the rest of the night! Though they may have been expensive, drinks were also pretty (very) good value for money, as my Tequila Tonic was a lot Tequila, and very very little tonic, so the night is a bit of a blur, but I can definitely say that it was a lot of fun. Made me realise I literally couldn't (and still can't) remember the last time I had been out just for a club night as opposed to for an event. I think I'd reached the point of thinking I'd 'out-grown' club nights, but since my return have wanted another one to occur very soon!

Check-out of the hostel was at 10am, which having been the last stragglers the night before, was a pretty massive struggle. Nevertheless, we heaved ourselves up and out for one final day of exploration before bidding farewell to Barcelona. I had a huge intrigue for the 'Barcelona Gherkin', as I decided to call it, so we began our exploration at the base of the city to discover what the building really was. From there, we had a closer look at La Sagrada, and along the way passed some other interesting buildings and sights.

Unfortunately, with the weather at its worst, it seemed that by lunchtime, everyone had decided to shelter in the market off La Rambla, so we were unable to stop there for tapas. Perhaps it was the hangovers, or tiredness, or by this point hunger, or the persistent rain, but we then struggled to find somewhere else to eat and sort of aimlessly wandered, unsuccessfully, for what felt like forever. We did manage tapas, but not the tapas we'd wanted, so I guess that's something to go back for?

I think the overall verdict is probably that Barcelona would be a very different place in the sunshine. It was, as I began with, a very fun place to spend a few days, and I'm sure I'll return in the future. Let's see!