July 31, 2015 - Bruges, Belgium with Belgium Private Tours

This morning Francis picked us up at 9:00 am and we drove to Bruges.

We watched the bridge turn to close after the boat came through.

And another bridge lift so that they could go through.

Waiting for the bridge to close so that we can cross over to the historic city center.

Just took a quick peek into a church as we walked by.

We also walked through one of the city parks.

These tiny daisy weeds looked so cute I can imagine little girls sitting on the grass making daisy chains for their hair.  I just picked one and wore it behind my ear.

Open air restrooms for the guys.

No it is not Halloween but these little boys don't care.

We arrived at the fish market.

Sells other things besides just fish these days.

Basilica of the Holy Blood

I really liked this alter piece with the lamb at the foot of the cross.

This upper church has been renovated several times and is much different that most of the churches that we have seen on this trip.

The lower church is about the same as it was when built during the 12th century.

From here we walked over to the City Hall.

The Bell Tower

Chocolate Duvel bottles, now that is a beer bottle I can get into.

They may have to clean the windows after we go by.

Medieval style house.

Taking in the view of the boats loading up and taking sightseers through the towns canals.

Can you believe that between Benjamin Franklin and Plato they put a Homer Simpson quote?

Taking in the view of all of the different beers and that they almost all have a special glass to go with it.

Bonifacius bridge

This town makes you feel like you are in Disneyland except that all of these buildings are authentic.

This picture is a shout out to our friend Pam Mullins who is our "Brown Sugar Queen".  I am sure there is nothing in this store that she couldn't make taste a lot better.

Time for some more beer tasting at the Huisbrouwerij De Halve Maan brewery and pub.  We all won on this one because we had their beer, cheese and ham soup that was really good.

Roger's beer

Fred's beer

Isn't that the truth.

This city has a lot of swans and there is a legend story of course to go with it.  Pieter Lanchals (his name means long neck) was a town administrator for Maximilian of Austria.  Pieter was executed in the market square and the Legend says that Maximilian punished Bruges by making the town keep swans (long necks') until eternity.

Minnewaterpark the Lake of Love

So many beers so little time.

The Church of Our Lady is being renovated so they put up a fake wall that blocked off half the church.

This is not the Michelangelo Madonna and Child that you can pay to see but I think it is beautiful none the less.

We wish that we would have spent a few days here so this will go on our list of places to come back to.  On our way home we got to make a stop at Francis's country house to our delight.