Brugge, Part Deux

[Edit: Photos from our time in Brugge available here.]

After a very comfortable nights sleep and a filling breakfast at the B&B, I repeated to Kaddee that the day was her’s till about 4pm or so and we would do whatever she would like to do.

She decided to do laundry :-). We spent an hour or so in a laundromat, and she hit up a couple of 2nd hand clothing stores that were near the laundromat for a sweater and a few other items. [We were really cold the entire time in Belgium]

After that exciting start to the day, we headed out for tourist-time, non-beer.

Kaddee had decided that she wanted to go to one of the canals that ring the city and visit one of the windmills that was there. Being the clever girl that she is, our meandering path took us by another great beer pub.

After wandering around the town a bit, we stopped at Terrastje Brugge.

A nice little place with a pleasant patio, just beyond the craziness of the central tourist area. Sitting there in the very warm sun, out of the wind, we were actually warm for our first time in “the low countries.”

Kaddee ordered a Kriek on tap. Sitting in the warm sun, drinking kriek finally made sense to her. “I get it now” were her words I believe. We had some nibblies and

• Orval. More “lively” than I have had in the US.
• the aforementioned kriek
• St Bernadus triple. Good, maltier than most triples i thought.
• Bruges triple. Tasty and much lighter than the St Bernadus.
• Chimay blue. Commonly available beer in the states.

We then walked out to one of the outer canals and the windmills.

They are on grassy little hills. I don’t know if the hills were man made, but there are not a lot of other hills in Brugge, so I suspect so.

The grassy hills were popular with families picnicing and couples snuggling. It was a beautiful day.

We walked up to one of the windmills that is open to the public with explanations of how they worked and how they were built. We spent the 2EU to go up inside. It was a steep climb.

What I found interesting is that the entire windmill can be pivoted to put the blades into the optimum position. I don’t know if that is a common feature of windmills, but it was pretty neat engineering.

All the buttressing and post and beam construction were pretty neat to see as well.

What was not so neat was the amount of swaying and creaking going on inside. They should put a sign out that says

If this windmill’s a rockin’, don’t come knockin’.

Ok. Maybe not.

After the windmill we headed, with Kaddee still leading. We wandered, seemingly aimlessly until we came upon the pub Vlissinghe 1515. Allegedly the oldest pub in Brugge. In business, uninterrupted, since 1515.

It had a lovely garden out back. While we were sitting there, a man asked kaddee, in French, if she spoke French. She replied, in French, “I speak a little French.”. But apparently the idiom she used was not proper. This “gentleman” sniffed, then corrected her on how to say “i only speak a little french” and walked off.

What a prick! He was asking her for help and he had the gall (or is that gaul?) to correct her. And some people wonder why there are so many jokes about “everybody hates the french.” Zut Alors!
But we laughed it off and drank beer.

Speaking of drinking beer, as we were sitting there, an American couple came in. A rather well to do couple who didn’t really know much about beer. I over heard them talking about the beer and i offered them some tips on what to order, based on what they said they liked.

A local overheard me and said “you must have the Duvel. It is the best beer in the world!”. I disagreed politely and he insisted that it has won awards from brewers in Belgium as “the best beer in the world.” I allowed as that may be the case, but that I could name a dozen beers that claim to have won best beer in the world honors. It was friendly and good natured banter in a sunny garden while drinking beer. A Good Time.

Beers consumed:

• Triple Karmeliet – a teeny little 300ml bottle.
• Hommel Bier – a nice hoppy triple.

Another walk to work off some of the beer and we ended up in the center of Brugge at Dickies for dinner. Sat on the patio and chatted with some Dutch tourists that were in town for the weekend. They gave us a couple of recommendations for places to visit on our beer tour.

I had the steak and Kaddee had the shrimp and monkfish. Very nicely done.

And of course:

• La Chouffe on tap. A “panic” choice. Trusty stand-by
• La Bierre Des Collines Hercule Stout. Earlier in the trip, we had the blond from this brewery and liked it so we tried the stout. It was lovely. Chocolatey, rich stout with good complexity. Not too sweet.
• Slaapmutske Triple, a nicely balanced beer, but my taste buds were shot from dinner and previous beers
• Saison DuPont. Something light to drink, since we couldn’t taste anything anyway.

Another stop at ‘t Brugs Beertje. We chatted with 2 American girls from Olympia, WA. (Rather upsetting to Brits who were trying hard to pick them up, i think). We enjoyed a few more beers:

• Cuvee de Trolls [ I have no notes on this]
• Malheur 10 – need to try this again, if I get a chance
• Faro – Lindemans. a sweetened, unflavored lambic on tap. Not nearly as heinous as I expected it to be.

A long stumble back to the B&B and we called it a night.