22 June 2014

Today I did a guided tour/trip to Ghent and Bruges.  While I loved that I could put the two towns together and see them, I didn't like that we were told there were beautiful paintings or a piece by Michaelangelo and not be able to see them.  But, I digress.

I woke up and was ready in plenty of time...even early!  I didn't want to miss out on my bus, even if it was with crazy bus driver guy.  So, I sat and waited.  It was 8:20 and I wasn't worried.  They said sometime between 8:30 and 8:50.  Then time began to tick tick tick.  At it was 8:50 and I was really worried that I had somehow missed the van.

I went in to ask to call, but she told me I needed to go around the corner.  When I told her I was a guest of the hotel and the bus was late and I was afraid I would miss my tour, she let me call.  Just as they answered, the gentleman from the company arrived.  Pshew!  They couldn't come to the hotel because of the huge Sunday market in front.  Fair enough.  It was me and three others waiting....we were all a bit nervous!

Ghent

Ghent's Guildhalls

Got situated and then found our group and got on that bus to head west to two medieval towns.  The history was interesting (again, anything versus chemistry is interesting, but especially history).  I'll sum up:  they were huge, important, industrial ports in medieval times.  Their cloth was known all over Europe and they did quite the impressive trade.  Then the canal from the North Sea (20 km away) silted up and no ships could get to Bruges, which meant no ships could get to Ghent, which meant the area was screwed.

one of the many
churches in Ghent

11th Century castle

We got to Ghent and were quickly shown a few churches, a castle, and the guildhall area.  The buildings remain pretty much untouched since the middle ages, which is one of their main attraction qualities.  The castle, I believe, was from the 11th century.  It looked really cool, but we only got a walk by.  No time to go inside.  Bummer.  Advantage:  you get to see it.  Disadvantage:  you could have done that on the Internet.

The historic area is really quite pretty.  I enjoyed walking around and seeing things.  Our tour guide was quick on the walk and I know I wasn't the only one who was trying to take pictures on the run, haha!  I think someone asked him to slow down a little, but I don't think it helped much.  I did manage to get some pretty shots though.  There were 43 of us to keep track of, which must have made things "interesting" for him!  He, like Jasmine, spoke fluent Spanish and English.  To be fair, we did have about 30 minutes of free time, but not enough time to explore too much.

12th Century hospital/church

We left Ghent and headed toward Bruges.  What a beautiful town!  I really enjoyed this portion of the trip, although once again, we did a lot of walking and a lot of not being able to take pictures.  The highlight of the trip for me was being able to go on a canal ride.  The gentleman who did the 30 minute tour was funny and did a really good job of explaining the different things we were seeing.  And....we had time to take photos!  Yippee!!

We had some time to walk around, about 45 minutes, and I found a 12th century church that allegedly has some of the blood of Christ.  I didn't do the museum because it was 8E and I didn't feel like paying that much, but I was able to go into a side chapel.  Very small, very old looking, very medieval feeling :o)

Some things were not open or busy because it was Sunday.  But otherwise we were able to putter around.  I didn't do any shopping today because I bought what I wanted to buy yesterday.  Tried to get a cup of coffee, but it was too busy at the cafe I

stopped at.  I "settled" for fizzy water, which I love!  Then, I spent the last few minutes wandering around, looking at the buildings and waiting for the guide.

I met some nice people on the trip.  I sat with two Spanish women in their early 40s at lunch.  They live and work in the Canary Islands.  I met a guy from Russia who is here this coming week for business and a guy from Mumbai who is here for the next 6 months.  He works in IT for Deloitte.  Met a Chinese family who lives in the UK now and a Korean family who lives in Houston, TX.  And about 1/2 the trip was made up of Spaniards on vacation.  It seems that people from Spain love Belgium!  Maybe it's the beer.

Came home, caught the end of the World Cup game.  Belgium won 1-0 against Russia.  Took a quick shower because I have to be up hideously early tomorrow....before 6am.  I am meeting John in Paris at the airport.  I'm actually waiting to hear from him to see if he can get onto the plane.  My fingers are crossed!  If not, I'll have to drive to Caen myself and that just makes me plain nervous!!!

Our flat is on the 3rd floor (which means 4th floor in Europe) and I have a million and one heavy suitcases (ugh!)  C'est la vie, I suppose!  More later...need to finish packing and get to bed!

 ***please note, I need to add pictures from Bruges to this, but they haven't finished uploading and I need to go to bed.  Gives you a reason to come back :o)*** Sunday night (my time).