Brugge or Brussels?

At the beginning of May, following my relentless pursuit of a “weekend away”, Derek and I decided to spend the weekend in Brugge, Belgium. Brugge is about 3 hrs from Amsterdam and is well-known as a very beautiful, relaxing city to visit. Brugge history dates back to the 5th century when it was inhabited by the Romans prior to being submerged by the North Sea. Two hundred years later the water subsided, leaving the land and a series of canals. The city was colonized during the 6th century and due to frequent wars and attacks in this area by various invaders, a fort was built around the city using the largest canal as a moat to surround the city. The city grew quickly due to it’s location in Holland for merchants and traders and subsequently was the setting for several wars, assassinations, churches statutes and art. Due to the city’s origin, the fortress protected Brugge from more recent wars in European history, therefore many of the historic buildings are still present. Due to the canals the snake through the city, Brugge is nicknamed the “Venice of the North”. Although I have not been to Venice (yet!), the city definitely was beautiful and very very historic. You can see several of the sights from the pictures below.

While I would prefer to just share stories of the place we visited and the things that we did, this trip diary would not be complete without a discussion of the fiasco surrounding our travel arrangements (and since I am the primary character in this story, this gives me the opportunity to share the story and add my personal commentary as well:-). Hopefully that helps.

Brugge is about 3 hrs from Amsterdam and the drive was uneventful. After rousing from a slight nap, 20 minutes from our arrival, Derek begins to plan the route will we take once in the city to arrive at our hotel. He had been to Brugge before, so I was confident with my internet maps and his knowledge, this would not be a story about us getting lost on our way. After a few minutes of reviewing the map, Derek says “You have to be kidding me”, “What?”, I ask. “Did you look at this map from the hotel?” says Derek. Now, this (of course) is a loaded question. I think back to the night that I printed it, so that I could correctly answer. Hm… I believe I looked at it…. although, it was around 11 pm… after I had worked a full day…I remember entering the name of the hotel in mapquest and it couldn’t find it… but I printed directions to the city and I printed the info from the hotel and I know there was a map on there… what could the problem be??? … “Yeah, I looked at it”. He gives me a strange look. Provides me the map and says with a laugh “Look again”. Now at this point, I knew there is something wrong, but what could it be?? Perhaps he is just playing a trick on me. So, I look at the map for several moments and nothing looks amiss. It is a map, it is the hotel and it is in Bruxelles… I thought that said Brugge, but the name doesn’t look quite right? Too many letters…. I turn and quietly say “Is this Brussels??”

Yes, it was. And Brussels was about 3 hrs south from where we were (and it was about 3 pm and we hadn’t even visited Brugge yet). Turns out that during the process of making the reservations, there were 2 hotels that I had contacted – Hotel Nicholas and Hotel St. Nicholas. Hotel St. Nicholas was in Brugge and was booked but Hotel Nicholas had availability but was in Brussels. Oops.

With fingers crossed for a place to stay, we decided to venture into the city and see what we could find. Parked the car near the center and started to walk the city. Everytime we would pass a hotel, I would go in and ask if they had any rooms. Several of the names I already recognized as places I had contacted and were full. We tried to skip those and any with 5 stars (because that really is traveling like an American and not a European). The first hotel was full, but contacted a neighboring hotel who did have one room left (although a suite and very expensive). The Crown Plaza (which is located right on the square), also had several rooms open (very very expensive and WAY to easy to be the end of the story – we couldn’t come all this way and stay at an American hotel). So that left us searching the other. After stopping several times, we found a 20 room bed and breakfast with one room left. We took it. It was right on a canal and turned out to be a very good ending to the story. We had a great time in Brugge – it was definitely a great getaway and satisfied my craving for some travel. However, next time, before we leave the house, I suspect the reservations will be audited!