Bruges

So I should point out that on the morning we were leaving Amsterdam we had a small celebration for my 30th birthday. So thanks to all of you for the phone calls, recorded videos, emails and Facebook messages, it was really appreciated!

We had an interesting start to the day, in order to get to Bruges (because we had chosen to take a bus...which apparently was a weird thing to do based on the facial expressions of everyone we told) we had to take a shuttle bus, then a train, then the main bus to Bruges, and then finally a short taxi ride to the hotel. When you say it in one sentence it doesn't sound so bad, it was a bit of a marathon.

Our hotel was freakin' awesome. The Duke's Palace Hotel is my top tip for places to stay in Bruges and now sits at the top of my favourite hotel list. And if you book far enough in advance on a website like booking.com then you can apparently stay for half price which is what we did. The service is excellent, the room was excellent and it was very affordable for a 5 star hotel. We stayed here as a bit of a splurge, and it was worth it because the beds were sensational!

For my birthday Nicky organised a fantastic restaurant called 'Park Restaurant', apparently you need to book about 2 months in advance to get a table. It is run by 2 brothers, has been running for about 20 years in Bruges and they just do amazing food and wine. The best thing is that there is nothing pretentious about this place, they are very intimate, the food is abundant and very delicious, the wine is perfectly paired with the meal. We have pid a lot more for a lot less in Sydney that's for sure.

The next day we explored the town. Bruges is very pretty, in my opinion more pretty than what we saw of Amsterdam in our brief time there. It's very small so 2 - 3 full days is probably enough time there to see everything and enjoy some great beer. Trent, I'm lugging around a few surprises for you so we should probably catch up when we get back.

We did a cool interactive walk through tour thing in the Historium off the Markt Square, had lunch near where all the horse carriages get picked up so Nicky could perv on the horses. We both loved the little horse we found out was called a Norwegian Fjord, though there was a very cool looking Fresian which was my favourite. They're the only horse that I've seen where you can imagine yourself charging on the back of with a lance. Which I do. Regularly. Though in my mind I'm much slimmer and bear a startling resemblance to Hugh Jackman.

After exploring the town we then did the second part of my birthday, the balloon ride! The days are really long in Europe at the moment so even though we didn't get into the balloon basket until around 8pm, it just looked like late afternoon. The weather was perfect and we had amazing views over the city. Nicky didn't even get scared one bit. Honest. It was a really awesome experience and my first time ever doing a balloon ride. It was about 10pm when we finally touched down in a field, cow shit and all. We've since cleaned our shoes.

It's a bit of a theme in our travels that we're always finding cute cats who want cuddles and pats. Naturally because we're missing our own animals we gravitate straight to them. There were a couple of cute ones in Bruges, but one in particular seemed to shout out at Nicky as we were walking past on the street and literally demand attention. He got it in spades.

From Bruges we then had to make our way back down into France where I got to try my hand at driving on the opposite side of the road. More on that soon!

Cheers,

Brandon and Nicky.