Interrail Diaries #4

 Interrail Diaries 4: The One Where They Went To Bruges. 

Sadly we had to leave the spooky Blankenberge house but before moving to the next location we headed to the town of Bruges. I signed up to a bag drop at a local hotel which was a life saver because I am NOT going to be walking round all day with my big ass bag on my back. 

Mural at Bruges Station.. so pretty

Bruges is like internationally acclaimed for being so damn beautiful and guess what - it is! But also because of that it's pretty busy, even the walk to town was pretty packed with tourists but as we went about our sightseeing they kinda dispersed. 

Honestly. This could be Ghent but there's no location or date tag. LOL

My first stop I'd been dying to get to was the Bascillia of The Holy Blood - which is said to have a relic of a host that is bleeding, with Christ's blood presumerably. So. We didnt see that- oops! I didnt look up what time they had it on show, but the church itself is just stunning! It's really colourful, almost folky so not such a wasted visit lmao.

the ceiling is soo cute?

Next thing we did was try and get into a museum for free and then we got hungry so we sat by the canal and ate our sandwhiches (vegan french cheese, tomato and homous - amazing combo). We had a booking for the Folk Museum in about an hour so we walked through town, taking our time to take in the beautiful medieval streets and classically Flemish houses. We also got a coffee from a local coffee shop that made all their drinks with pea milk?! I was pleasantly surprised with my pea milk americano, not much pea-y taste lol. 

evan with a mini library!

The Folk Museum was AWESOME! Each room was set up like a different persons room e.g Blacksmith, Cobbler or like a collection of historic items from the area like embroidery or devotional objects. We both had lots of fun doing the "kids activities" like putting on clogs and doing a dance and we also got to attempt some old fashioned games with some other visitors - none of us were any good lol!

Old-timey room

Folk museum resident cat - Aristide IV. He is very miaowing and not that interested in pets.

Various religious objects, so tiny!

Vintage hat fashion show, participants: 2

If your ever in Bruges the Folk Museum is my 1 reccomendation, it's really fun ^.^ 

We also went to the lace shop next door because I was being cheap and didn't want to pay to go to the Lace Museum but honestly it was like being in a museum. The lady who owns in collects and restores vintage lace and its all sooo beautiful! I bought a little swatch I'm gonna put in a frame soon.

Ty Evan for taking sneaky picks!!

Before leaving we visited some more churches - duh! And even got to go to a Carmelite church which adjourned a monastery. I'm a big fan of Carmelite saints - St Therese of Lisieux, St Teresa of Avilia and St John of The Cross so it was cool for me hehe. 

 

Pink and blue oh my!

St Teresa of Avilia statue

By this point we were ready to continue on our journey so we got our bags, almost got run over by some school kids and ate homous and bread in a park because we missed our train lmao! We finalllly got the train - which was mega busy, because it was busy we accidentally ended up in 1st class which I lowkey did not notice until a lady in front of us was like oh no I'm in 1st class. I was like noo we are too and then she was like they probs won't check anyway - and they did not! So thank you Antwerp lady :D! We made it to Antwerp in barely one piece and rushed into a falafel shop owned by a really sweet guy who was super cheerful :) We devoured our falafel by the river but then I got hot sauce all over my jumper so we bought some accidentally corked wine and headed back to the accom to binge watch Sex And The City. I also managed to get the hot sauce off - yay!

 

Antwerp... moments before hot sauce

 

:D

What will happen to the twerps in Antwerp?? Will we finally speak Dutch? probably not. hehe

Interrail Diaries #3

Next stop is Blankenberge, which is on the coast of Belgium! It’s pretty near historic towns like Ghent and Bruges whilst not being too expensive :)

We got the train from Paris to Lille and then changed onto a train Belgium-bound! It was cool to hear the announcements change from French to Dutch as we made our way towards the west of the country. Unfortunately for us, we when arrived in Blankenberge it was raining in a serious way and then we had issues with the key… sigh. So we contacted the host who then called his friend over to help us. And guess what - he opened the door in one -_-. Because it was raining we didn’t feel like doing much so we headed to Aldi to grab some supplies for dinner and got a pretty good view of the tram lines - which are the longest in the world! 

sppooky water tower

the house had some cool old fashioned vibes but was a little spooky at times

i made coffee in this just because twin peaks.

We really wanted chips so we got some from Aldi to heat up but we couldn’t get the oven to work without potentially killing ourselves so we just ordered some in lol. The house was super cosy because it was raining, it was nice to be cold for the first time in a couple days.

The next day we headed over to the medieval town of Ghent or Gent. The most well known thing in Ghent is probably the Castle of The Counts which is this awesome castle in the centre of the town that was used in the middle ages. Inside we saw some amazingly decorated weapons as well as just the different rooms in the castle.

The illustrator Randall Casaer has illustrations and tapestry’s all over the bulding, so cool!

We then went on a walk to the Bejinhof in Ghent which are a collection of medieval houses and a church that were once used by a female religious community. These Bejinhof exist all over Belgium and The Netherlands and some have even been rebuilt over the years. We also went to a few cool shops including one that sold loads and loads of vintage mass cards and Catholic postcards. I was even given one for free ^^

I had to get the St Therese cards :)

We then walked through the city to a yarn shop where evan got some cool wool and was able to go to about five different churches lol! I am so happy to be friends with someone who doesn’t complain when I drag them into yet another church :D

Little wall shrines are everywhere! Secret foreshadowing for Antwerp where they are on like every street

We then were desperate to get some food before going back so we hit up this vegan place serving versions of traditional belgian dishes. They sadly did not have the stew I was pining after but I got some tasty meatballs. Evan got the very traditional ceaser salad burger lol!

yum yum yum

On the way back to Blankenberge we decided to walk along the sea front. The beach is like kind of a mess because they have all these ugly bars and stuff on the sand but it’s nice to see the sea :)… 

Where to next?