Sunday, April 1, 2012

Brugge, Belgium

We took our first overnight trip to Brugge, Belgium last weekend.  We had such a great time and loved the city.  It is about a 2 hour drive from where we live.  The architecture was beautiful, chocolate shops were amazing, and such a great walking city.  The town hall was built in the 1300's and is still used as their town hall today!  Brugge is well-known for their chocolate shops and they were all beautifully decorated for Easter.  Of course we had to indulge (or mostly I did :) ).  We did lots and lots of walking and went to a couple of the squares, churches (one has a Michelangelo statue), old windmill, very old nunnery, and a boat ride.  Our first stop was the the church with the Michelangelo statue, which was amazing to see, but very hard to go to places like this with small kids.  Abby realized her voice would echo in the church, so she kept getting a kick out of hearing herself.  The first few times were ok, but then we started getting the looks from the workers.  I had to leave, while Troy and Ryan finished looking.  After they came out Ryan requested not to go to anymore churches.  So, for the rest of the day, every time we were going somewhere new he made a point to ask "We aren't going to anymore churches, right?"  I don't think he liked having to stay quiet for that long! :)  Plus, places like this aren't too exciting for a 4 year olds mind.

We also went with a co-worker of Troy's and his family.  Their kids are pretty close in age to ours, so it was great to go with another family with kids!  The amazing thing is that their kids only speak Dutch and Czech, so Ryan and their son, Ondrej, only have a few similar words, but figured out other ways to communicate and had the best time together.  It was really neat to see how they were able to communicate when they didn't understand the language each other spoke.  Their parents had to do some translating between the 2 boys and us.  I am amazed daily at the multiple languages many of the kids here know.

Here are a few pics of our trip:
 One of the many beautiful chocolate shops

 Ryan's friend Ondrej inside the Church of Our Lady

Bell Tower 
 Small house with big houses built around it



 Brugge also has lots of Belgian Waffle shops.  We ate lots of these thru the weekend too. :)
 Bridge before entering the nunnery
 Abby LOVES birds.  She just spotted one!

 The nunnery

1 comment:

  1. Hello..nice trip of Your Family..:)
    wish you have heaven with your kids..love and fun :)
    I hope to join with you as an Au Pair so when oneday I come back here,I will spread to all of kids at Indonesia about culture and education there..

    kindly visit me ranggaferguson1987.blogspot.com

    warms regards from Indonesia

    ReplyDelete