Belgium, Brussels, Brugge, Beautiful....

I'd been waiting for this country for a very long time (no prizes for guessing why) and at last I hit it for my 21st... country. Sadly the 21st birthday was a little too long ago, anyways...

Chocolate chocolate chocolate. Taking the advice of Narelle, my experienced traveller bud, we would pass by a chocolate shop and pick a couple of chocolates to taste, and then continue this through belgium to enjoy the experience. This, of course also means that you are walking off the chocolate as you go (or so you tell yourself) which minimises guilt. Some interesting chocolates to try - with cumin, with cinamin, with chilli, with pepper, orange and coconut, rum balls, pralines, the list goes on...

So many choices... How much for the shop?

But to be true connoisseurs, we also visited the chocolate museum to find out all about this yummy stuff. Much more interesting than the butter museum of Cork. We had also fluked arriving in Brugge a day or two before the chocolate festival (nice one us), so we stayed in town rather than go for a day trip, and lucky we did because we also got a free demonstration by a local chocolatier, furthering our all important chocolate education. Speaking of which, the museum did have an educational section and a FAQ section, although Dean and i were a little skeptical, tell us what you think...
FAQ
Q. Does chocolate make you fat?
A. If you are thin it does not make you fat. If you are fat, lose weight then you can eat chocolate.

hmmm

Big bloody egg...

Now to celebrate my 21st, beer also had to be explored. So after a long day of climbing viewing towers and wandering around chocolate shops we would do some beer tasting. Now we all know that Dean would be better at writing this section than me, but his Grandpa is starting to get concerned about his beer drinking so it is up to me - full reports by Dean when we get back.

We tried as many different ones as possible - Dean was in charge of the Dunkel (dark) and Weiss Beers, the Pils and Blondes were left to me. Unfortunately, the blondes and Pils had a higher percentage so pints were limited. Many pubs had over 300 to offer, but we found a cozy one with a friendly barman with 70 to offer - that seemed to be enough. Dean also loved it because of the sausages hanging over the bar... he was pretty happy.

Here is Dean's perfect chocolate shop - meat!

Someone had too much beer...

The last treat of Belgium is of course the waffel. A little disappointing i'm afraid - we found it really hard to find any that were freshly cooked. If you wanted it warm they would put in a microwave!!! Hence, my waffle munching will have to wait for Zakepane, Poland yumyumyum.

Sightseeing wise, we checked out the big square in Brussels which was very impressive and it's brewery museum. We climbed the Belfry (356 steps) in Brugge and watched it's cool bell music machine thingy, checked out some windmills and saw lots and lots of tulips (yep still in Belgium, NL next).

The 'notes' on the bell thingo...

But really, Belgium is about Chocolate and Beer, and we did them both very well:)