Tomorrowland day 2 - Bruges

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I woke up that morning feeling the dreaded after-effect of having had too much to drink the night before. And so I decided it would be a good idea to avoid alcohol that day.

Tuesday, July 16, 2019 was to be the first day of our Belgian Journey in which we would get to tour Bruges.

I got picked up at the hostel at 10am. The bus ride was painfully long, but fortunately was the longest of the trip since Bruges was the furthest destination from Brussels of all the cities we visited. First, it was just me and three Floridians I had met the night before. Then the double-decker bus stopped at a hotel downtown and filled up.


This was the first sign I saw indicating the strong local support for Tomorrowland. It's more of an institution here than I ever expected.

On the northern outskirts of Brussels the bus stopped a little while at a gas station where we met up with another full double-decker. Then our two buses struck out for the long haul to Bruges.

Our first stop, however, was not in Bruges itself but at a small farm town nearby. In fact, the place we were going wasn't exactly reachable by bus, because the streets were just too narrow; there was a point where we had to turn, but it was impossible for the huge bus to make such a turn there. So...we all stepped off the bus and walked the rest of the way! I won't complain about that, I wanted to get as many steps in as possible.

At the end of the long walk we entered a large garden where our picnic lunch awaited. Everyone got a big bag containing a hearty lunch, which included a delicious chicken curry salad. We got to eat while sitting on hay bales and listening to these two guys with guitars singing various songs from the last few decades:

After the picnic we got our bikes. This bike, for me, took a little getting used to. It was a heavy aluminum construction with only seven speeds. The bike I ride every day to work is lighter and sportier, you see. If my own bike is like the Ford Mustang of bikes, the rentals we were all getting here were basically Toyota Camrys.

Before Bruges, our first stop was a tiny village called Damme.

Our guide explained that Damme used to be a hugely important medieval seaport and that it was almost as big and populous as London in those days. Today, Damme's population has shrunk to 50 while London's has blown up to over 10 million.

After Damme we rode our bikes along the canals into Bruges. This is one of the more important cities in Belgium's Dutch-speaking Flanders region. The native Dutch name is Brugge, meaning "bridge," and is known as Bruges in French; for some reason we use the French name in English. Much like in that other Dutch-speaking country to the north, we encountered quite a lot of windmills and canals.


I asked what river we were riding by. No rivers; these were all canals. Presumably artificial.


There were a few of these around. I don't think they're used much anymore.


This is the Church of Our Lady. It's the tallest brick building in the world.

The last stop was an awesome beer bar called The Beer Wall. That name's pretty accurate.


This was definitely a bar I'd recommend to any other visitors. They had a huge selection of Belgian beers.

Here we were given voucher tickets for two free beers each. These free beers were pretty small, something like 150ml. And since I had overindulged the night before at the bar near my hostel, this was all the beer I wanted or needed. Unfortunately I don't remember which beers I had; I think one was an amber ale and the other a red, but I could be wrong and I certainly forgot what the brand names were.

After the Beer Wall, the day's trip was over, so all that was left was the long bus ride back to Brussels. I had dinner at A La Ville de Louvain, the same bar where I had drunk all that Leffe the night before which also serves food. The grilled chicken was pretty good.

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