My Belgium tour continued and I was lucky to have two companions accompany on the remaining part of the trip.  The next stop on our tour was the touristico city of Bruges.  Upon arriving it was pretty obvious why it was so popular with the tourists.  It had canals crisscrossing it’s way through the city, beautiful churches dominating the skyline and amazing architecture everywhere!  Just walking around on the streets was exciting and there were tons of things to see and due to the tourists, decent people watching.

Joey, John and I all arrived on the same train and took a tram towards the city centre.  We then split up and made out way to our individual accommodations with the intention of meeting up later.

I decided to wander the streets and check out the city a bit.  The central square is dominated by a giant bell tower called the Belfry of Bruges and is possible to climb (which we did do later).  The square was surrounded by patio restaurants and beutiful buildings.  It was a great place to just relax and enjoy.

I decided to get some lunch and there was a special on for mutton, so I decided to get that.

Apparently Belgium really likes their beer walls and Bruges had one too but i liked this one better.

I decided to continue to explore the city by going for a run around the city.  It was really cool because the whole city was surrounded by a mote (canal) and I ended up running around the city!

Upon returning to the hostel after my run, I met up with one of my roomates in the hostel and we headed out to get a drink at a place I was recommended.  Joey joined us!

The place was called De Garre and it was a super Belgium style.  It was down a small alleyway and had a special beer they had brewed just for them!

It was also really cool, because with every beer you got some cheese! (this was actually pretty common at general at Belgium bars like this)  Thanks for the recommendation Ramon.

I ended up walking by another beer place on the way back and stopped in to see what they had.  We ended up striking up a conversation with a small group on a personalized beer tour. I learned a litlte bit based on what the tour guide said and once he left, we enjoyed a nice conversation about beer and Belgium!  I forget where they were from, but I think they were American.

I then headed back to the hostel for a good nights rest (It was a bit interrupted when two people came in at 3am and turned the lights on when they were going to bed, but that’s just hostel life for you)

They had a bunch of gambling machines in the main floor since it was set up like a rock and roll bar, and there was this one that was similar to an original pinball machine.

The next day was a planned brewery day as there were a few famous breweries in downtown Bruges.  So I met up with Joey and we set off on our adventure.  (I am pretty sure John headed off to an out of town brewery for which he had arranged ahead of time) I forget why he was not around at this point)

The first stop was Brouwerij Bourgogne des Flandres which makes one namesake beer.  It’s a spontaneously fermented top fermented lambic style beer which was pretty good.  The tour was also pretty high end and “nice” because the brewery was completed in 2015 despite it’s old appearance.

They did their initial fermentation in an open fermenter before moving it to a more traditional conical fermenter.

After the tour, we enjoyed our sample by the water while waving at tourists floating by on the tour boats!

After the brewery tour Joey and I decided to climb the bell tour of the Belfy as one does when they are in Bruges.  The lineup wasn’t that long and was much shorter than we had seen at other times of the day before.

The views were pretty neat from up there.

The bells ring every 15 minutes and the tune is changed every so many months.  We were lucky enough to see and hear the bells ring while we were up there.  I really enjoyed seeing how it worked but boy was it loud.

After our climb down, it was time to fuel the tanks with some food and I had been craving mussels ever since we stepped foot in Belgium.  So we went for Mussels and they were delicious!

Our next stop was Brewery Tour number 2.  Joey had planned most of his trip out in advance so had tickets for the VIP tour at De Halve Maan and I hoped I could just sneak in as a single additional if they were sold out.  Turns out they were indeed sold out, but I gave him the puppy eyes and he let me on!

The coolest thing about this brewery is that A) It was old and B) they made a beer pipeline that transports beer 3km through the city to another facility just outside of town.

They had to build the pipeline because there was no room to expand in their current downtown location and they didn’t want to leave the city center and their history.  The solution was to brew the beer at the original location and then pipe it out of town to their new fermenting and packaging facility.

The brewhouse itself was quite modern, but the tour took us through all of the historical parts of the brewery that are now being done down the road.  It was actually very cool!

They even did their own malting at one point and therefore needed a smoke stack which we climbed up in order to get up to the roof.  The view was awesome and it was really cool to see the history.

It was one of the more interesting brewery tours I have done, since it had so much focus on history.

The tasting was also good and since were on the VIP tour we got more tastes.  I could continue to talk about this brewery, but feel free to take a look for yourself.

After the tour Joey and I were pretty tired, so we went back to his place and watches the movie In Bruges, which I had never seen, but it was cool to see all of the places that we had seen throughout the last two days.  It was also cool to watch the movie in the namesake place.

This was our last full day in Bruges before moving on to Brussells!

The next morning was a short train ride to Brussells.