Arriving in Bruges

 Saturday August 2, 2025 - 

Today we had a lazyish morning in our hotel room and found some surprisingly healthy and delicious food options in the train station for breakfast.

Side note: Our hotel was good, but the bathroom was a bit unusual. The toilet was in a separate room and you had to go down the hall to get into the room where the sink was to wash your hands. Keep in mind it wasn't a big hotel room. Just a bit strange. I'm curious if the separate toilet room is a cultural thing in Belgium? 

Update added later: We stayed in two more hotel rooms in Belgium and neither had the separate toilet room. Apparently this one was just a weird one!

I was glad we had a bit of time because it wasn't as easy as you might think to figure out what train we were supposed to take. Part of the issue is that Belgium has three official languages: Dutch, French and German. None of which we speak. Also our tickets were flex tickets which meant you could use them any time during this day, but not on certain trains... which was about as clear as mud to me. Also on the screens telling you which platform to go to they didn't often list Bruges because that wasn't the last stop. Eventually we figured it out and got on the train with no problems.

Here I am on the right platform!

Travel tip: We had bought our tickets in advance before we left home, because often it is cheaper to buy in advance. In this case it wasn't necessary. We could have bought our tickets today for the same price.

This train also didn’t have room for suitcase, but they easily fit by our feet. This is the third train we've been on in two days and each of them were very different set ups.

Interesting Fact:  The city name is written two ways. Bruges (that is the French spelling) and you also may see it written as Brugge (which is the Dutch spelling). Most English speakers say Bruges, which is pronounced Broozh. In Dutch, Brugge is pronounced Brooguh. 

Another interesting fact: Bruges means bridge. This is a city of bridges and canals and is another city to add to the collection that like to be referred to as the "Venice of the North". Out of curiosity I'm going to look back and see how many of these Venice of the North places we have been to... it seems like more than five for sure if I'm guessing!

When we arrived at the train station, our intention was to take an Uber to our Bed and Breakfast. When we looked in the app there was a long wait time, so we went to the taxi stand instead. In the end the taxi was faster and cheaper than the Uber said it was going to be.

For this leg of our trip we stayed in an amazing bed and breakfast called "Mirabel Guesthouse". I'm not really sure how we ended up at this fabulous place for such a good price, we don't usually get something this fancy in our price range! If you'd like to take a look here is their website: Guesthouse Mirabel  If you are coming to Bruges we would both highly recommend it!

Here is a photo we took later in the day of the entrance to the B&B. Fancy right?

When we arrived we were greeted by our host who took us into the reception room to sign in. We were then treated to some fresh homemade juice and a Belgian chocolate as a welcome. This was very lovely. Our hostess also showed us a map and approximately 10 million things we could do in Bruges during our three day stay 😉

After putting our luggage in our beautiful room we headed out for a walk to explore Bruges. While we walked we whispered inappropriate lines from the movie "In Bruges" to each other as we recognized filming locations from the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, it is a dark, completely inappropriate comedy... hence the whispering!

In the movie, one of the characters describes Bruges as a fairytale town. I don't think there could be a more accurate descriptor. This is a charming, picturesque town. Everywhere I turned there was some beautiful building (and a chocolate shop!) We spent a lot of time wandering, looking and taking photos today.

Here are just a few photos so you can see for yourself:

Ahead of coming to Belgium, we had three foods that we absolutely had to try. I call them my holy trinity of Belgium. Can you guess what they are? Chocolate, fries and of course the Belgian waffle!

We have seen many opportunities to have all of these things. Restraint from treats will not be happening in this fairytale town!

We jumped right into trying out these foods by going to a place called "Fritbar" for dinner. It was jam-packed with customers and we thoroughly enjoyed the fries. I had the parmesan fries with truffle mayo. I can't describe how delicious they were, and might even call them perfect fries!

When Steve went up to pay for our fries at the counter the owner asked him if people tell him he looks like a celebrity. You guessed it, another Gordon Ramsay reference. She said she was hoping he would come into her kitchen and yell at her! Steve declined to do this. 😀

Celebrity mistaken identity counter on this trip = 4

After a very long walk around the town we headed back to the room to watch "In Bruges" so we could scope out more filming locations for tomorrow. Steve went back out and picked us up some chocolate covered waffles that covered the other two items in the holy trinity of Belgian food. 

These were delicious, and of note is that the warm waffle makes the chocolate all melty and delicious! Warning! These are not meant to be eaten anywhere (like on the beautiful white sheets of your bed and breakfast!) Eat at a table!

Final random side note of the day!

Today I was reminded of a post I did 15 years ago in Greece, about how people are posing for photos. You can see it here if you like: How to pose for vacation photos!

This came to mind, because today, I saw a lady taking a photo (right outside the window where I was eating my delicious fries!). Several times (yes several) they retook the picture of her holding both her hands with fingers splayed out beside her face. Eyes wide and big smile. I'm not sure what the hands are for... but I've been using it in some of my photos for fun. Let me know if you know what message this pose is trying to send... I'm thinking "I'm so excited and surprised at how beautiful this place is?"