b's birthday in bruges

At just over two hours by train from Waterloo, Belgium is the perfect place for a weekend away. The country’s most popular destination is Bruges, a medieval city with cobble-stoned streets lined with chocolate shops and tea rooms. While it looks like a perfectly preserved town from centuries ago, apparently much of the architecture is only as old as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (although which buildings were old and which were new remained a mystery to us – the short tour we went on involved a guide repeating his spiel in Flemish, French and his best attempt at English over a muffled microphone. The only bit we could make out was the part at the end about gratuities being appreciated.)

There are no people in Bruges, only tourists. Tourists taking canal tours and rides in horse-drawn carriages. It’s like being at Sovereign Hill. I mean that in a good way – you feel like you’re getting away from reality. You can just walk around enjoying the sites in a contented daze full of coffee and waffles.

Ok, of course there are real people living in Bruges – the people working in the shops for a start (who were all very friendly by the way) – but exactly who the larger population were and what they were all about was as much of a mystery as the buildings. And the way some of them decorated their front windows only added to the intrigue. I think they were trying to tell us something, but what?

P.S.
And just so you don't think this whole blog is being written from a secret bunker in Oakleigh, here's some proof that we were actually there: