Pretty Cities

Took a couple of days with Jon to stop observing calamitous war destruction and instead spend some time in some of Belgium's prettiest cities.

Brugges

Brugges from the Belfort

Spent an afternoon and morning in Brugges, which must be Belgium's most popular city to visit.  It's a proper old European city that has been fortunate enough to be largely untouched by the wars.  This plays a large role in it's being the prettiest city.  The center is dominated by a giant, visitable belfry (or Belfort as it is known) which is treacherous but rewarding to climb.

The city also has canals with folks taking boat rides, etc.  We found a chocolate shop that seemed to be in to bulk sales to tourists.  Belgian chocolate is still good in its brick-like state.  It may not be necessary to get the fancy ones, although the only way to verify this is through scientific experimentation.

The weathers has been a bit rainy, but that's ok.  Like boy-scouts we are prepared for such things and it does not bother us.

The Belfort from below

View from a bridge on a canal-square.

Another canal segment.

Lucifernum

The interior of one of the well decorated Lucifernum room.
Jon approves of the choice of style.

We were referred to Lucifernum as a nighttime place.  It's not a mainstream place, but rather a private residence that the owner has decided to open to the public for rum-based drinks.  The Sunday evening we went was a rather tame evening, but with what seemed to be a large group of latin American folks.  It was sort of a relief to me to be around people whose language I can begin to understand.

The outside and main social area of Lucifernum that evening.

Ghent

On the way back to Brussels to drop Jon back off at the train station for his journey back to Manchester we stopped off for a light lunch (and rain soaking) at the old market city of Ghent.  Apparently this used to be the largest city in Europe.  The unique style of this city was that the squares felt bigger and more airy, and even though the centers had not been demolished it deliberately mixed in some very modern style with the old.

Also it had a really cool castle.

An example of very modern displays mixed in with old buildings
and ghost buildings.