We woke up and went to a local restaurant for a waffle breakfast. Miles was a bit unsure at first, but ended up loving it. The scoop of ice cream on his waffle helped with that.
We took a 50 minute boat tour of Ghent. The guide was a young man with excellent English. He gave all of his tour in both Dutch and English. As usual, I am quite skeptical about the information that supposed guides give out. Assuming he knew what he was talking about, he pointed out a small building as the Tax Collector's office and a guild house for ships, which had the Santa Maria on top.
There were at least 3 tour groups overlapping the same set of canals. They had at least two things to be embarrassed about, but neither were addressed on the tour.
1. While most of the water was clean, there were pockets with trash on the water. One such pocket was near the area where he pointed out turtles to us. The boat tours should alternate days cleaning the canal and show some pride in their town of business. Alternatively, they could all put in equal money toward hiring a cleaning service or the town itself should levy a tax on them that would go towards keeping the canal clean
2. Near the end of the tour, we passed a high wall with a banner that spoke out against noise pollution made by the boats and the microphones on them. Personally, I didn't think the sound was that loud, by either the boat nor the guide, but I imagine that if I had to hear it nonstop daily while living there, I would feel otherwise. Just two things to make me think about.
We took a taxi back to the train station and took the 19 minute ride to our final tourist stop, Bruge. If you are Belgium, they call it Brugge. Why two names? Is Brugge really that hard for the English speakers? Now that I think of it, Seville, Spain went by Sevilla by the natives. It is confusing and pointless to change the names.
We took a taxi to the bed and breakfast that we are staying at. It was highly rated and won an award from Tripadvisor. Miles gets his own loft with a bed, which he was excited about.
It also has a beautiful view from the room, of the garden that you can go out to whenever you'd like. I enjoyed reading there that night.
The space in the room is massive compared to a hotel, but a day later and I still have no found an air conditioning unit and my attempts at experimenting with the heat have been fruitless. Luckily, the weather has been just right so far. The woman who runs the bed and breakfast is very nice, but I feel awkward around her, because I know that she owns the place and lives here, in another portion of the house. I felt similarly awkward around the owner of the previous bed and breakfast that I went to back in Sintra. I will ask about temperature controls tomorrow I suppose.
We walked around town, taking in the beautiful buildings of the market center.
Then, I looked online for highly rated local restaurants and went there. When I saw the restaurant name, I walked in. Except, it wasn't the restaurant. It was just a bar of the same name, like a bar only version of the restaurant. They directed me a few doors down to the actual restaurant, which also had a very large bar... In any case, the food was good. With most children's menu items on this trip so far, it included a scoop of ice cream, however, it came in a unique casing, which we were allowed to bring home after.
A young couple that sat down near us sounded American, so I struck up a conversation with them. They both just graduated college in Honolulu and were taking 35 days to travel around Europe. Apparently, it took them 25 hours or so to arrive in Europe. Hawaii is definitely far out there. They went to Disney Paris as well, and for the guy, it was his first time to a Disney park. I pointed out that he certainly traveled far to find his first Disney park.
We walked around town for a bit and then headed back to the room to rest. We'd been exhausted from so much walking on the trip.
On our way back, when crossing the main square, a street performer, a young man, announced that he was doing his final trick. Miles, loving magicians, was immediately intrigued. After we joined the crowd of onlookers, he asked for Miles to join, as having a "cute kid" would improve his act and attract more viewers. Miles was asked to write his name on a 20 euro bill, among other things. It lasted about ten minutes. At the end, explained that he was from Australia and had just come to Bruges two hours earlier, and asked for donations. He did a good job and I enjoyed his performance, so I contributed a little. Plus, he included my kid. How could I not?
For the below video, skip to 3:00 for Miles' involvement.
For the below video, skip to 3:00 for Miles' involvement.
This morning, we went down to participate in the "breakfast" part of bed and breakfast. I am not a morning person, and so I dread having small talk with the owners/hosts. I also have stomach problems and don't eat the meats and cheeses that most Europeans seem to eat for breakfast. They always seem a bit taken aback when I insist on us drinking water rather than orange juice. Acid on an empty stomach is not good for me in the slightest! I waited til the last minute, as we were walking up, to let the owner know that I wasn't interested in housekeeping during our stay. I never use housekeeping, even on cruise ships that claim that they "must" do it. It is always met with astonishment and insisting. Avignon ignored my request this trip.
We stayed in until noon and then we left for the bike rental shop. The idea of renting a bike here had been exciting for Miles ever since I mentioned it to him before we left. For 10 euros each, we were allowed the bikes for four hours. First, we biked to the outskirts of the town, and then we followed bike paths. In Belgium, Cars yield to bikes and bikes yield to pedestrians. It is an odd system and there are bikes everywhere.
There are some historical windmills in the circular park surrounded Bruges. We stopped to take a look, as we headed towards a canal path that leads to a neighboring town, Damme.
The path to Damme was long, but flat. Beautiful trees lined the path on both sides of the canal, along with farms and farm animals. Another windmill greeted us as we approached Damme.
The town itself was very small, although it did have an old church or two. It was not worthy of me posting pictures, but it was more about the journey than the destination. We found an excellent restaurant for a late lunch. It became very windy, but we biked back anyway, facing the wind. Using google, I calculated the distance of the route. We biked a little over 10.5 miles. Quite an accomplishment for the little guy.
After dropping off the bikes, we saw a chocolate store across the street, The Old Chocolate House, that was boasting that they had the "best hot chocolate" for only two euros. "We shall see about that!" I said. It was given freshly made, but in rather tiny cups compared to American size standards. Nonetheless, it was indeed very good. Miles declared that it was indeed the best he had ever had.
We walked through the main square, on our way back, and saw some young tourists alternating taking pictures with each other in their group. I offered to take a picture of all of them and they were very excited and then thanked me and even bowed. They spoke Japanese and English. It was a very pleasant and memorable exchange.
Just before we reached our b&b, we went into a store that had someone's name and then "Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This is a stop that I intend to make when visiting Germany. Inside were many very expensive wooden creations and huge areas dedicated to Christmas decorations/ornaments. In the second room were lots and lots of cuckoo clocks. The small one weren't too expensive, but the ones measuring a little bit over a foot in either direction were exorbitant. 500 euros were the minimum, going upwards of 1200 euros. They were incredibly beautiful though. Very very incredibly beautiful.
I have a few ideas for tomorrow, but canal cruising won't be one of them. I decided that my two caveats from my Ghent boating were enough to dissuade me from doing any more Belgium boat rides.
Extra thoughts on Disney:
1. After a while, I realized what was missing in Disney Paris. There was no Splash Mountain, one of, if not my favorite, ride in the Orlando parks. The weather in the Paris area is fairly cold most of the year, so I completely understand them not having it, but its absence was still missed. Crappy Indiana Jones did not make up for its absence.
2. When they hadn't opened up the outdoor rides and we were considering leaving, Miles was pretty bummed. I took this time to reveal to him what Buzz Lightyear's original name was. Butt Lightyear. I explained that it wasn't received very well, so they changed it at the last minute. As much as he tried, he could not contain his laughter.
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