Yesterday, I stopped at a local comic shop to try to get Pokemon cards with Dutch writing, but they only had English.
We continued on to a food truck and music "market" that was being advertised locally. Miles picked up a pizza while I got couscous and vegetables.
We walked by the shops for the last time, including this one with a chocolate fountain.
At night, we went to a free harp concert, that included a traditional harp, a celtic harp, a steel drum harp variant and some others. I didn't want to interrupt him with camera noise so quickly took one picture that didn't come out too great.
Today was just some light train travelling and checking in here. We plan to relax and go to sleep early.
Farewell Bruges.
Trip roundup: The highlight of the trip for me was Carcassonne. I had thought that it would be less enjoyable for me, after seeing a few castles in Portugal and Spain. It was most similar to Obidos. A small, walled town. Private in a way. I thought Roussillon, Ghent, and Bruges would feel similarly small. Roussillon came the closest of the three, but not quite there. Ghent and Bruges have a small city center, but then branched out endlessly. The people never really went away, even during weekdays. They didn't have the feeling I was looking for, and that was disappointing. Cinque Terre gave that small town feel. Nighttime in Venice surprisingly did as well. Crowds disappeared and you felt like you had the place to yourself. Archaic and beautiful.
Dogs: Dogs are allowed everywhere in both France and Belgium. In the middle of indoor restaurants, on trains, on paddleboats. They were everywhere, and in many places off leash. If a dog is well behaved, there is absolutely no reason in my eyes that this shouldn't be standard everywhere. As it is, dogs are not allowed on trains in the US. They are pretty much never allowed off leash except for dog parks and beaches. In Palm Beach County, FL, where dogs are brought in carriages to the mall, they are not even allowed to step foot into state parks.
Roundabouts: Driving in southern France was all about roundabouts. Only a handful of traffic lights were encountered during the 10+ hours of driving. They worked smoothly and kept things moving.
Other driving notes for southern France: The roads are windy. Along the route we took, there was barely a straight road in sight. Most did not have lines of any sort in the middle of the road and you had to slow down when cars came from the opposite direction. Bring Dramamine.
Waiter speed: Italy was slow and Portugal/Spain were slower still, but France took it to glacier level speed. Halfway through France I pretty much gave up on dining out and only did it occasionally for Jeremy. I preferred going to places that Jeremy referred to as "halal." Restaurants were absolutely ridiculous. Most waiters didn't have a great attitude either. Belgium had more reasonably speedy service and much friendlier staff.
Weight: There were much noticeably less overweight people in both countries, despite both having similarly sized portions as American ones.
Bikes: Perhaps related to weights, the amount of biking in both countries were extraordinary. Bikers were up in the Verdon Gorge with miles of no habitation in either direction, going up the steep hillsides. People biked all over Paris. Ghent and Bruges had exponentially more bikers than cars.
Trams and Ghent: Ghent had tramway lines throughout the city, giving almost no room to actual roads. I never thought to take a picture of them, but they were double the length of buses or more and completely dominated the streets.
English: When we first arrived in Nice, the young Uber driver lamented the lack of English spoken by the French. His English ended up being among the best we'd encountered. Belgium, which has three national languages that aren't English, was filled by people that almost universally spoke English. This is just an observation
Overall, the trip had a lot of variety, with new experiences, and everyone had a good time. I leave at the end of the month for a trip through Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan. I am not quite sure what to expect. As I have continually learned, it is very hard to gauge a place or an experience until you actually do it. More often than not, I have misjudged a place from the impressions I have gotten from online research. I also think that I am looking for different things in a vacation than most travelers.
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