Eurotour: day 2

Today we spent the whole time getting to see two cities in Belgium. We left Köln early in the morning and drove about four hours to Brussels. There we got a few hours to get out and explore the city on our own. Unfortunately we had pretty bad weather the whole time. It was raining pretty hard most of the time and even began hailing for a while. I ventured around with Crash, Lucas, Johnny, and William. We saw a bunch of beautiful old buildings and palaces, and got really delicious crepes for lunch. The architecture in Belgium is stunning! The designs are so grand with all their gothic styling and lots of gold details. I could really feel the French influence in all the buildings. In Brussels one of the most famous tourist attractions is this little statue of a boy peeing into a fountain, and the people dress him up in different costumes for different occasions, so of course we had to go see that. We also got waffles from a little stand which is a must do in this city.

Finally it was back in the buses and on the road to Bruges, our next stop in Belgium. We got to our hostel in Bruges and then left to the restaurant where we had this amazing three course meal. Rotary really spoils us here! After that it was free time again until 11:00. We split up into our little groups and headed off. My group and I pretty much walked around the entire town. Bruges isn't that big but Crash was determined to see this bridge he had seen on the map. We covered a lot of ground in two hours. We found all the wind mills, walked along the river, saw some more beautiful cathedrals and clock towers. It was a really nice evening. We were also lucky the rain had cleared up so walking around was a lot nicer. So that was my day in Belgium. What an amazing country. I would have loved to have more time here in Bruges, it’s such a sweet town, with really old brick building lining the skinny cobble roads. It’s supposed to be one of the best preserved towns in Europe! But time to move on. Next stop Paris!! 

(photos from day 2 will be up on my flickr soon)