Which is good, because the town that we visited is known by one name with many different spellings. The Lonely Planet lists it as Bruges (Brugge), the Michelin guide listed it as Brugge, and we saw it spelled Brugs on some city maps posted in the town.
We left on Saturday afternoon, after picking up our Peugot rental car from the Avis counter at Gare du Nord (we were helped by a woman who made it very clear that she hated her job). Pete was the lucky driver who got the first shift, and after a few hair-raising incidents getting out of Paris, he quickly got the hang of the standard transmission, the lack of signalling, and the lack of familiar road signs. We thought it was amusing that the posted speed limit on some of the French autoroutes was 130 km/h in good weather, and 110 km/h in bad weather.
The scenery was farmland, and both Erik and Pete were reminded of Alberta. There were many times when you could see incredibly far in either direction, it was just flat, green farms. Every once in awhile we'd see the spire of some old church poking up from the middle of a cluster of homes.
The drive took about 3 hours, and there were no border controls as we entered Belgium. In fact the building that was at the border was quite dilapidated, with broken windows and peeling paint. On the way out (on another highway) there wasn't any markings or buildings at all. We eventually started seeing signs in French, and assumed we were back in France.
It was dark when we got into town, but luckily the castle and the moat that we had t o cross to get into the city centre were well illuminated. The centre of the city is surrounded by a sort of moat (I'm sure they'd call it a canal, but it's much more fun the other way), and there was a drawbridge-esque bridge on the road leaing into the city. Of course the drawbridge was attached to a lovely old (small) Medieval Times-ish castle. A delightful first impression.
We checked into our discount hotel (comfotable except for the cauliflower smell in our room, and the 'automatic' shower that you had to turn on every 30 seconds. Think annoying sink tap that doesn't stay on long enough to wash your hands. But it's a shower. And they didn't make the timer any longer). After dinner (with beer, of course!) we took a walk around the city, and planned out what we were going to do the next day.
To Be Continued....( I should have pictures to share tomorrow, and they really make these posts more interesting, I think)
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