Monday, April 09, 2007

Monday in Bruges, Belgium

After a lazy start to the day this morning, we headed out to Bruges. For those that don't know us, that means we had a hot breakfast and were out the door to the train station by 8am!


We arrived in Bruges and took a bus to the old city center. It is a beautiful area with cobblestone streets and horse-drawn carriages. We took the canal tour. It lasted about 30 minutes and gave us a quick overview of the city.


We could see this dog looking out his window and watching the boats go by in the canal. I thought he was hilarious. We laughed and wondered how many times a day he gets his picture taken since most of the people on the tour with us took his picture too. I'm posting it especially for Gramma since we talked about her when we saw the dog!


We walked to the edge of town and climbed the hill to view the windmills. Maria loved this since she has been reading The Winged Watchman, by Hilda van Stokum. It is set during WW2, during the Nazi occupation of Holland. The family in the book lived in a windmill. This trip has really brought the book "to life"!


As we were walking, we came across a playground and Maria took a "break" to play. The park the playground was in was beautiful and there were lots of people taking advantage of the sunshine and the holiday.


We ate a late lunch and wandered the streets some more then headed back to Brussels on the train.