In Bruges...

On 28th Feb, we drove to Dover, hopped on the Euro tunnel and drove up to Belgium.....

A fab time was had, even though it rained :(.....but a really lovely place to visit ! Obviously the chocolate was everywhere.....I have soo many pictures of very well displayed windows and even though I'm not a chocolate 'lover' (I'm more of a cheese person!!) my mouth was drooling at the site.....

 

 

 

There were also these plastic  rabbits....

 and plastic gnomes....not sure what that is about...?

 Cakes etc in the form of soap....

 Horses waiting to be taken out ...(see the umbrellas!)

 

And 83 metres (approx) of church steeple to be climbed.......and yes, I did manage to get to the top!!

The views from the top were amazing, and would have been better on a clear day (and if my camera hadn't decided to act up!)  I did zoom in on this one ....

 Halfway up.....

 And a huge brass drum...like a large music box!!

Unfortunately for our ears, we were up there at 10 o'clock....the noise was deafening from this bell...

Sorry about the bad picture, it was behind glass....

 A huge amount of stairs were climbed up and then back down.  People were going up and down at the same time which meant that you had to stop every now and then and squeeze into the corner of the steps to let them pass...

 

After our epic climb, we found this lovely little tea shop.....with another fab window display....

Inside was very cozy, with the shop downstairs, displaying these gorgeous little tin houses, either filled with chocolate, or empty...soo cute, don't ya think??

 Also chocolate sheep....

 And more houses, waffle, and biscuits!!

 and up these stairs for the cafe....I really wanted that chicken on the banister.....

 I had Belgian Chocolate Green tea, served up in this lovely little iron pot...it was delicious!  

 Hot chocolate (of course!!) for younger one....this cup was huge and served with marsh mellows, chocolate drops in a chocolate cup which you dropped into the cup of hot milk....

 We had a chocolate and a biscuit each....the biscuits had an orange gooey centre....

 On the way out, these caught my eye...(of course!!)

Walking around afterwards, looking at the fabulous architecture....how I'd love to look inside these places...

A quick stop overnight in a hotel, then off we went driving to Amsterdam to get the boat home....we went the long way and had to get a small ferry across the water....

 then eventually on the big ferry home.....(overnight)

 leaving port...

 driving home at 6.30am Sunday!!  Beautiful.......

I will definitely be making a return trip at some point, and hopefully the sun will be shining!!  sorry about the long post, you can wake up now!! : )