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Showing posts with label Bruges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bruges. Show all posts

Friday, 3 June 2016

The Little Bear



After a slightly disappointing hotel breakfast we pack up our belongings and our hangovers to grab a local train over to Bruges. We arrive too early to check in at our second hotel, another Ibis, so we loiter in a café at Bruges station for a while.

As L moves on to her third cup of tea, I can’t face another coffee because I am still tripping out from the first two. So perhaps it’s time for the first beer of the day. They have a dark Corsendonk on tap so I go for that. Only once it’s been served and I’m taking my first few sips do I look at the menu and realise that it’s 10% ABV.

After finding our hotel we head out for a wander around and then to hang out outside a bar to wait for our friends. The second beer of the day is the local Brugse Zot. I have the brune and L has the blonde, both are a little on the dull side.

Our friends are staying outside Bruges, a safe distance away where they can park their posh car, and they get a taxi in. When they arrive we head off for something to eat and end up in probably the most expensive restaurant in Bruges. The food though is very good, both L and I have the same thing (how twee), garlic mushrooms with Flemish Stew to follow. Both are good but the Stew is excellent as is the Westmalle Dubbel we wash it down with.

After that it’s to the famous Brugs Beertje. Bruges's Little Bear was the first speciality ale house in Bruges when it opened in 1983 and to many it is still the best. We empty their cellar of quite a few bottles between the four of us.

(Friday 3rd June)

Thursday, 19 November 2015

Relatively Fit


It’s even windier today than it was yesterday, yet it’s still not a patch on Holme Pierrepoint on Sunday. So it doesn’t stop me cycling.

We look at non driving options for Bruges next year. It seems ferries no longer run to Ostend and stopped doing so many years ago. This means the only option really is the tunnel and Eurostar via Brussels where you have to change trains.

We could be right travellers, a night in London, a night in Brussels, a night in Bruges... just like students backpacking around Europe. Of course, as we are making plans, Brussels goes into 'lockdown'.

My squash opponent announces himself ‘relatively’ fit for tonight’s game but not relatively enough to stop me taking a game off him. He stuns us all later in the pub when he enquires about doing Pilates on Saturday, after rejecting the idea for years. Obviously not as relatively fit as he thought. 

(Thursday 19th November)

Saturday, 14 November 2015

Terms And Conditions



Off to Newark today where L parkruns and I have a dog show.

MD has three clear rounds out of four run which is good but we don’t get any high placings. Well our best of 8th isn’t too shabby but we don’t even get a rosette for that. The fourth course was the type of twisty difficult affair we may have bagged a top three on but like most folk, we fail to get round it.

We have been invited to Bruges next year but the terms and conditions only arrive today. There is a Marathon involved of 26 beers in two days, at Belgian strengths that’s a tall ordeal.

I go out for a training session tonight. Some nice Titanic Stout in the Borlase and then a few normal Gorillas in the Blue Monkey. A grand total of 11 halves at UK strengths which isn’t making the Marathon look any more do-able. 

(Saturday 14th November)