Bruges, Brussels, and Luxembourg

Bruges had been suggested to me and was a great city to visit. The city is divided into two sections the old and the new. The old sections has buildings that date back to the 18th century and certain building go back further than that. The old town square lies in the middle of the city, from here you can see almost everything. Right on the square is a huge cathedral and the other sides of the square had massive old styled archicture building that were probably used for the royalty and government. Right down the road there is another cathedral and a little ways further is a 3rd one. Everywhere in the old town there are cobble stone streets with stone building lining it which were all natural colored.


The hostel I stayed at was about 5 minutes from the city center. It was a great hostel by my definition because it had a lot of people there, cheap, had a central hang out location, and 1€ beer. The first night I hung out with some Australians and Americans at the bar and had a good time. One of the Australians was really cool he's a competetive spearfishman, so he had plenty of stories about the fish that he caught and friends that would dive 30 meters on one breath. At a later time I talked to a American liberal fundamentalist. He was a little annoying because he seemed like he had poor knowledge but extreme views. I didn't argue with him too much, since most of the time I was trying to figure out what he was talking about.

The next day I went to the Chocolate Museum and the Diamond museum. The chocolate museum had good free chocolate, but I was upset with the diamond museum because they didn't give any free diamonds. It was interesting because they showed how to cut, turn, and polish diamonds.


Instead of spending the night in Brussels I decided to do a day trip there. I wasn't too impressed with Brussels as a tourist, but I think I would like it if I lived there. It seemed like a very modern city, but one that did not have many interesting things for a tourist. I decided to walk around a little bit, so I headed to a cafe and got a capacino and a beer. The beer had a really cool bottle with a metal hinge that pulled down the cap to close it, it reminded me of a soda bottle from the 1900's. Later on I got an order of frites and mayonase, aka french fries; these people eat the strangest food. When walking around the city you see tons of people eating fries loaded with mayonase, I guess they don't care for ketchup. That was the extent of my exposure to Brussels, I guess it wasn't too exciting, Luxembourg on the other hand was much better.

The next day I headed to Luxembourg. When I arrived I met a guy, Alex Taylor from Canada, heading to the same hostel as I was. After we got settled in the hostel we headed out to see some of the town. We couldn't see very much since it was night time and rainy. I got some dinner from the grocery store and then we headed back to the hostel and chilled out in its cafe. In the morning we really got to see how beautiful Luxembourg was. Luxembourg is a very rocky and mountainous area, but head a lot of rivers that have carved out vallies over time. It is interesting because the architects here did not avoid this area even though it would be difficult to build on. On the top of one of these slopes is a castle with a couple hundred meter wall that follows the ridge line, below in the valley is a small square with a few massive building, I think the buildings were part of a local school. Across the river on the opposite slope of the castle's slope is a fortress called the Casemates. The Casemates are a series of tunnels that were used as a military fortification. The total length of the tunnels are 23 km, but Alex and I were only able to go through about 1km. There were great views from the tunnels because they had the old cannon holes that overlooked the city and the surrounding areas. Alex liked photography a lot so both of us ended up taking a lot of pictures. I only spent 18 hours in Luxembourg, but really grew an appreciation for the city. Next I was off to Paris.