A copious continental breakfast lay in wait for us on the 1st floor of the b&b, served by Nicoletta. The b&b is called L’Histoire de L’Eclair. Our rooms are up under the eaves of this traditional old house just around the corner from the main square; the rooms are very pretty with huge beams crossing just above our heads. During breakfast Chopin’s Marche Funèbre was playing, quite a coincidence because Davie had been talking about it the day before. Then when we were getting ready to go out, the church bells were chiming from all directions and one of them was ringing the tune Over the Rainbow. How lovely. This continued on and off throughout the day, with a medley of Abba tunes while we were having coffee on the open air balcony of the town museum. Before that we went on a canal boat trip which gave us very pretty views as we passed lots of church towers and buildings with stepped gables.
The weather was very warm and sunny, and people that we spoke to assured us that it is the best day of weather that they have had since last summer! After coffees and teas in the pub above the Historium, sitting out in on the balcony overlooking the main square we went for a long and extremely pleasant walk through the streets of Bruges, enjoying the slight breeze which stopped the warm day from being completely sweltering. We had lunch in ‘t Nieuw Walnutje sitting outside in the little square in the warm sunshine, and it was absolutely idyllic. Our next activity was a tour of the De Halve Maan Brewery, an excellent suggestion of Davie and Chanel’s. We were told by our enthusiastic tour guide that beer has been brewed at its location for approximately 500 years. The current brewery has been run by the Maes family since 1856. In 2016 they constructed a 3.3 km underground beer pipeline to connect the brewery with the new bottling plant on the outskirts of the town. We had good views from the roof and James, Davie and Chanel enjoyed a beer at the end of the tour.
More adventures were to come. We climbed up the 800 year old Bell Tower in time for the 7 p.m. chimes, which were very loud! From the top we could see all the way to Zeebrugge. Then we had dinner in a pretty restaurant, where James, Davie and Chanel had mussels (not the best ones they have had, they all agreed) and I had asparagus à la Belge, and then we all had drinks sitting outside the lively Café Pick near the main square. Even though it was dark it was still warm.
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