Monday, April 27, 2009

In Brugge

I'll go city by city so this is gonna take awhile.  We rented bikes in Brugge to ride to the seaside town of Oostende.  Funny fact about Oostende: Marvin Gaye lived there for like a year.  Here are scenes from the bike ride.


We spotted this place across the river, and I'm so happy we stopped there.  It was just this little cafe in the middle of nowhere, but the beer list was huge.
Here's the place.
Here's the harbor of Oostende.  It's an OK little port town.  
Food is pretty pricey in Belgium, so I only had mussels once (in Maredsous sauce at Spinnekopke in Brussels, thanks to KW for the rec!).  I was stoked when we spotted a row of seafood shacks in Oostende that were affordable and delicious.  Mmm..herring, pickles anchovies, octopus salad and some mystery sea creatures.


Here's Brugge.  It's very picturesque and touristy.  I respond to touristy stuff by not taking as many pictures, so I don't have a lot of the town.
This was a great beer store in Brugge.  It's a small chain, there's one in Brussels, too.  It's like the best stocked beer store I've ever seen. No big deal.
My favorite day trip that we took out of Brugge was to the De Dolle brewery in Esen.  We took a train and then walked a few kilometers through the country.   Here's the outside of De Dolle.
A lot of breweries make pate with their beer. Here's the De Dolle Oerbier pate.
Here's the patio at De Dolle.  We chilled there for hours.
De Dolle had an Easter beer called Bos Keun that is delicious.  

That's the brewer in the right hand corner.  He has a blazer that has the wacky Oerbier guy on it.
Here's a little Brugge canal picture.  It is this pretty all over the place, but also tourist-choked with lots of dumb stores like H and M.
This is a Brittany-style crepe place in Brugge.  It was my favorite place I ate there.
Here's the crepe, with cider of course.  I came away from this trip pretty stoked on cider.
Brugge has a wonderful bar called Beertje that we chilled at a couple of times.  They had a Cantillon glass that I never found anywhere to buy.  I liked it because the cursive made it such a lady glass.

8 comments:

DJ Rick said...

Wow....I thought I had a pretty interesting week, but I guess not. Whattalife you guys got!

Anonymous said...

Its all so beautiful, it looks great.

-Natalie..

mt.st.mtn. said...

i picked up that Ara Bier and a few others from the same brewery at that bottle-shop in Carlsbad. that was really good, loved the labels too.

fft said...

great crepes and cidre is such a simple, delicious meal, so how can so many sac creperies FUCK IT UP!

beckler said...

well, first of all they attempt to make the crepe as big as your head, rather than a snack or light meal like it's supposed to be.

mt st mtn-if you ever see the de dolle bos keun anywhere, pick it up. it has a funny bunny on the label. btw-is anyone from the mayyors driving home after the show this week?

The Armeniac said...

Looks wonderful! I second the creppes as big as yr head problem. No pictures of waffles?

beckler said...

I only ate waffles twice. And chocolates once.

The Armeniac said...
This comment has been removed by the author.