Ski Week Begins

Ski week.  For those that don't live in Europe, ski week is an obsession.  The schools close down for one of the last two weeks in February, workers take vacation days and families pack up and head to their nearest mountain for family ski fun. And this happens in almost all European countries.  Often, our family is just coming back from skiing in Colorado, so we pick someplace warm(er) and spend a few days with the family in a new country soaking up the sunshine that we haven't seen in months.  This year was a bit different though.  We had spent the holiday's in Florida so warmth and sunshine were not our objectives so we looked at finally going skiing for ski week.  And then we realized that with all of Europe on break and heading to the mountains I might have been a little late to book and I was right.  Not a room to be had.  Which was ok because B did not have a full week to spare in his vacation calendar anyway.  On to Plan B:  We would head someplace we had never been before and make it a long weekend instead of a week.  We pretty quickly settled on Belgium which we had meant to get to for awhile now but hadn't found the right time.

Valentines Day dawned and we made sure we were festively attired for our trip:

We got to the airport where the festivities continued as the airport handed us packages of heart-shaped gummi hearts for the trip...

and we settled in for the very short hop, enjoying the view all the way (photo cred to MadHatter who was the window photographer).

 We got in just checked into our hotel just in time to head out for dinner.  In search of authentic food, we headed down to the main square to find a restaurant that had been recommended to us.  Sadly, even though we were dressed for the day, had eaten heart gummies and wished all of our friends a happy day we had still somehow totally forgotten that it was Valentine's Day and most places would be fully booked.  Plan B: We wandered for a bit and stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant.  Now, it was not exactly what we were expecting to have for our first dinner in Brussels but it was tasty, warm and got us back to the hotel in a timely fashion.  Which was perfect because we had an early wake-up call the next morning so that we could make our tour bus to Ghent & Bruges.

The next morning dawned gray and rainy but the weather channel called for afternoon sun so we crossed our fingers and boarded the bus.  Our first stop - Ghent.  It is the capital of East Flanders in the Flemish region of Belgium and, in the late middle ages, it was the largest and richest city in Northern Europe.  We only had about 2 hours to spend wandering here but with the wet and rainy weather, it was plenty.  We hit the high points and then boarded our bus to Bruges.

St. Bavo's Cathedral was our first stop of the day.

 Strange thing to have in a church...

 The Market Hall with its exciting interior.

 The gilded houses of the Graslei Canal.

 And the Korenlei...

Gravensteen - one of the most reliable moated fortresses in Western Europe.  It was built in 1180 by Philip of Alsace.

 We warmed up a bit on the bus ride over to Bruges (about 45 minutes) and were surprised to see blue skies and even the sun when we disembarked.  Not wanting to have a rushed lunch with our tour group, we split off on our own with promises to meet back at the bus parking lot in a few hours.  On our own, we wandered to...

the main square and its lovely storefronts.  I love the color and the peaked stepped roofs. 

 The tilting Belfry.  We didn't climb the 366 steps to the top (too long of a line) but we did stop and admire it (look at the picture below and you notice that it leans...a full 1 meter).

The Basilica of the Holy Blood.  Containing nothing short of the blood of Christ brought back from the Second Crusades. (no pictures of the vessel allowed but I did get the altar).

 All around town there are these fabulous arched doorways leading to tiny streets full of quaint houses.  Utterly enchanting.

 The two pictures above are the Church of Our Lady in Bruges.  Their claim to fame is having the only statue of Micaelangelo's that left Italy during his lifetime  - The Maddona with Child.  Famous and pretty impressive.

 The Memling Museum.  We didn't go in since we really knew nothing of Memling's art but we did love the building and the sunshine that was streaming all around us as we headed back to the bus for the 100km drive back to Brussels.  After a spectacular dinner, it was back to the hotel for some rest because we had a lot of ground to cover in the next two days.