Antwerpen to Brugge

 Our hotel offered a 12pm checkout so we had a lazy 9am breakfast. 

View of the train station from where we had breakfast. 

We then walked to the Huis Rubens. This is the house that the painter Rubens built. It is now a museum complete with an interactive display in the basement area and a superb garden area which is a real rarity in the middle of such a large city. The display was very good and helped us understand a little more about the man. His house unfortunately is closed due an extensive renovation. He was clearly very wealthy and successful in his own lifetime which seems to be a rarity for artists of his time. 



Then it was back to the hotel but we couldn’t resist a couple of side excursions. There are many many jewellery stores here. 87% of all the world’s diamonds are traded here. Bling bling bling. 

We then wandered into the very impressive railway station. Multi level and and architectural wonder. 

We packed up and headed to the underground carpark. Robyn nearly gave me heart failure when she fed our only bankcard into the slot where the parking ticket goes. A jaw dropping few seconds passed before it kindly spat it out again. Whew. 

Then it was time to say goodbye to Reijo and Barbra as they head back home to Finland. We have a great time with them over the past few days. I think it will become a regular expedition. 


We then headed out of town through at least 100 sets of traffic lights. We passed through one green light and a scooter whizzed past us just as some idiot in a car decided to cross right in front of us. No drama for me but the scooter very nearly copped it. 

It was then through country lanes and farming villages. Not terribly interesting but the final straw was the roads in this part are concrete, and the bumps and unevenness of the whole thing got a bit tedious. So with a bit of Tomtom massaging we were soon on the motorway for the last few miles. 

We did stop at a very posh tea rooms for a cuppa before hitting Brugge. 

We had a bit of an explore, our hotel is right in the old town on a canal so we can walk everywhere. Our first impressions are all good. We have seen the tower from the movie “In Bruge”. I must watch it again to refresh my memory. We had a very nice dinner and then wandered home. 



I managed to get in a dad joke on the way home. We were following google maps just so we didn’t walk more than necessary. We came to a canal and I said to Robyn “ that’s not our canal, ours is the far canal”. It took a while!



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