During the first weekend of my Easter Holiday, I had the incredible opportunity to visit Belgium, staying with long-time friends of my grandparents. Although I was only there for 3 days, I completely fell in love with the places I visited. I can’t even begin to count how many times I thought to myself, “I’m definitely going to learn to speak Dutch and move here.” In fact, I think it might have just been permanently engrained in my mind all weekend.

To get to Belgium on Friday, I took the ferry from Dover in England to Calais, France. After driving for around 90 minutes, we arrived at the home of my host family. Their house was absolutely beautiful, full of antiques and other relics collected from my host family’s travels all around the globe. After a lovely dinner at their house, I went to bed quite early to prepare for a full day on Saturday.

On Saturday, I spent a lot of time traveling around, but the day started in Brugge. Brugge is a very old town, much older than anything I could ever find in America. The majority of the buildings still look old as well. That’s because the governments doesn’t actually allow contractors and builders to tear down old buildings. Instead, they have to refurbish the outside of the building, although they can gut and update the inside. I, for one, liked this policy as it made the town look unique and beautiful. I was speechless for most of my time in Brugge, as I found the town so breathtaking.

Brugge is also surrounded by a network of canals, which make for some amazing photographs.

One of the things Belgium is most famous for is its various forms of beer, illustrated here by a humongous beer wall. Along with each beer bottle is a specific glass, which is only used to serve that specific type of beer.

This cathedral is made entirely of bricks. Not long before I arrived, they had just finished a multiple year cleaning project. Many of the bricks had become blackened from dust and dirt building up over the years.

After visiting the market to buy some chicken, my host family and I began the somewhat long walk back. On the way, we stumbled across some beautiful tulips in bloom.

While walking, we also stopped to look at what I dubbed ‘Swan Lake.’ This stretch of canal was covered in beautiful swans.

Another feature we passed on our walk was something I wasn’t planning on discovering: a bridge covered in locks, much like those in Paris.

One of the highlights in Brugge was definitely the dog in the window at the right. According to my host family, that dog will sit at the window all day nearly every day, hamming it up for the thousands of tourists that snap photographs of him.

After a delicious lunch at my host family’s flat, we (temporarily) said goodbye to Brugge and drove for a quick visit into the Netherlands. On the way, we drove through a small village called Damme, which is famous for its unique church tower. Once in the Netherlands, we took a small walk through a village called Sluis before heading back to Belgium.

One of the most interesting things that I noticed during this trip was the ease with which one can move from country to country in Europe. If a country has joined the European Union, then there is rarely any border control between that country and other in the European Union. It was a very strange thing for me to wrap my head around, considering I grew up dealing with traffic at the border every year before my family’s annual vacation in Canada.

Once back in Belgium, we drove along the coast, then decided to stop for some famous Belgian waffles at a well-known cafe, ‘Marie Siska.’ My Belgian waffle was absolutely delicious, although I do have to admit I may have stuffed myself a bit too full trying to eat it all.

After briefly revisiting the flat in Brugge, my host family and I set out for dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant. I ordered a pizza despite the fact that I was still full from my Belgian waffle. In the end, I only ate about 1/3 of the pizza, with the rest being boxed up to eat later.

With aching feet (as per usual) and tired legs, I found myself easily falling asleep in the car on the way back to my host family’s house. And with that, a good night’s rest was in order to prepare for my last full day in Belgium.

Until next time,

Emily .xx