roadtrip to bruges

the mister doesn't ask for much, and when i suggested visiting bruges over the summer bank holiday,  he wasn't the most interested. "why waste a good day off", he reasoned but was game to visit over a weekend. and boy was he right! now belgium holds a special place in our hearts. the mister spent a year in leuven (home of stella artois) on exchange, and during that year he traveled all over europe. i'm surprised he even managed to explore belgium, seeing how he was using it merely as a base. actually, i'm more surprised he won best speaker at the european round of the space moot. but that's another story for another time. and the mister, he hates when i brag about him so i really shouldn't. but i am so proud of him (even a couple of years on) and it was particularly poignant because on the very same day he won, i was miles away in singers receiving a D (not distinction but A, B, C, D... also an achievement!) for constitutional law. yay me. undergrad throwback aside, was fortunate to visit the mister in leuven during winter and summer holidays and the small university town grew on me. 

so you can imagine how excited i was to return to belgium after five years. and to finally visit bruges because we didn't get round to when he was on exchange. little did i know that in the years passed, bruges has gained infamy as the boring town from the colin farrell movie! and being the total ignoramus i am, i booked us into the same hotel as in the movie. took me a couple of days to realise why there was a constant stream of tourists on our otherwise quiet side street, and why they taking photo after photo of that darn bridge! 

and because the mister isn't a big fan of birthdays, i'm not really allowed to say that we went to bruges for his birthday (it fell mid-week and we were away over the weekend). to which he's quick to point out that if we were to celebrate his birthday, i didn't do a very good job because he ended up driving us to bruges, around bruges, and back. but the hotel was lovely and they very kindly gave us a free upgrade to a canal suite, which was superlative. in fact, it was just so darn beautes that leaving the room felt like a waste. and to me, that's the essence of a destination hotel. 

but a little more about the drive before i leave you with some photos. now we've driven all over europe (iceland, corsica, south of france, tuscany, mykonos, santorini, crete) and it's always been a rental car. now i've nothing against rental cars, but luxury isn't a priority and we usually get the cheapest manual car available. so to be able to drive our car (nevermind it is ancient and third-hand, it's ours!) over to europe was a real treat. the euro tunnel has got to be the most amazing engineering feat ever and it's so organised! absolutely seamless, pain-free commute. after this i'm not sure if i can take the eurostar any more. it's quite unreal how in the span of an hour, we'd gone from folkestone, UK to calais, france before driving to bruges, belgium. and the check-in onto the train was a breeze, the crossing took all of 25 minutes and before we knew it, hellooo continent!

easy peasy drive, minus the mister having to switch his mind around. he's driven right-hand car in right-hand drive (singers, UK, australia), left-hand car in left-hand drive (europe, US) but never right-hand car in left-hand drive. we pulled up at the hotel around 11 and the lovely night manager poured us beers and nibbles on the terrace.

(view from our room!)