We spent only one day in Brugge, but it was beautiful! A lovely city surrounding a circular canal. The houses with rooflines that look like stairs were built in the 1700s and some houses were marked with the year so we knew exactly when they were built. We took a boat tour to get a general look at the city from the water's level. Then we wandered the streets. The boys were thrilled to find a shop that sold soccer jerseys, including an Italian jersey for only five euros (normally 30-60 euros) and another for 15. Their wardrobe is getting quite sporty.
The other highlight of the day was finding a candy shop (candy, not chocolate), where there were two men making hard candies with a heart shape in the center. We watched the whole process, from pouring the hot clear sugar mixture onto a metal table, adding colors, cutting and kneading, pulling the white part so that it would have more air and a lighter texture in the center, combining colors, making the heard shape, then putting it in a rolling machine to size the giant candy log into delicate sticks. Some of the sticks were cut into bite-sized candies, while the thicker sticks were swirled into lollipops.
Beyond candy, Brugge is made up of two types of stores, clothes and chocolate. There were too many chocolate stores to count (or maybe on my next visit, that will be my goal). We went into many. We thought that they would be mostly the same, but in fact every store had its own twist on how to make and sell chocolate. Some sold incredibly refined truffles that were shiny and embossed in gold, others made rustic patties that were just poured chocolates with nuts and fruit thrown on the top as the chocolate cooled, others had animal shapes such as rats (the boys' favorite), and a few sold body parts, particularly breasts and penises. Once they got over the initial shock of seeing private parts illustrated in 3-D chocolate, they went from saying, "I've been scarred for life," to "Oh grow up," and pulling out the cameras to take photos. They even had rainbow flag penis lollipops made out of dyed white chocolate. While we tried to eat something in every shop, we soon ran out of room and money, but do have bags of different types of truffles that we carried with us to sample as our trip continues. I think my favorite types are pistachio marzipan (like almond marzipan but made from pistachios and bright green) and the florentines which were burnt sugar and almond toffee with chocolate.
Definitely did not have enough time to see this city in it's entirety in one day, but definitely glad to have spent one day there.
Here is a link to photos - there are many of the candy making and some repeats at the end as I don't have time to sort through and delete, so sorry there are so many and they're not really edited. Feel free to comment on which shot you like best on ones that are duplicates. View Album
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