We finally caught up on our sleep deficit. We went to sleep last night at 6pm, I woke up around midnight to finish the blog, then we slept until 7:30am. We dressed and headed down for breakfast at 8am. We were the first guests to arrive and therefore got the best table, by the window. The restaurant is downstairs, so partially beneath water level. Ducks swam by our window as we ate a full continental breakfast. We headed out around 9am, crossing again the Lake of Love. The birds were very active this morning; we had a mother duck and her ducklings run right past us. We were kicking ourselves for not taking a loaf of bread with us from breakfast.
We walked through the abbey, seeing a little decrepid nun walking to her apartments. The streets were fairly clear this early in the morning. We walked around the shopping streets before deciding it would be a great idea to take a boat tour around the canals. We found the first one and jumped on the next boat with about 27 other people. It was a great tour, lasting about 1/2 hour, taking us all around the city. The architecture is so striking, and every view is a picture. Our guide spoke to us in Flemmish, French and English, but the speaker on the boat was so poor, that I still needed Christian to translate.
After leaving the boat, we decided to just walk the city and see where it takes us. We walked through churches, antiques street markets, past japanese tourists doing watercolors of the waterways. For lunch we decided to go with traditional Belgian food, since we haven't technically had any yet. We found an adorable restaurant called Miramar, which had outside dining. It was fairly cold, but we were the only ones outside and they put us in the gazebo with a candle; very romantic. Christian had 1/2 pint beer, chicken and fries. I decided on a Belgian waffle with ice cream and chocolate. While good, I must say it makes a pretty rubbish lunch, because I have been totally exhausted ever since.
During lunch the weather got even colder. We finished up and spent around an hour perusing the tapestry stores before heading back to the hotel (note: the 'city' is only about a mile from side to side - so it's not that big a deal). By this time Kelly was pretty cold so we got more clothes on and retrieved the keyboard and headed back out. After visiting 2 cathedrals ('Our Lady' and 'Saint Salvador') we ended up back at the market square (Markt) where a group of native americans in full leather and feathered garb were performing. Their music was incredibly beautiful; very ambient, done with various flutes and a rain stick. They had an amazing sound system as well. They were selling their CD for 15 Euros, but we decided not to buy it.
We left there and ended up in the café I mentioned yesterday, enjoying a warming hot cocoa while having arest. While I was sitting at the table typing out this entry Christian took the keyboard from me and typed the following:
These people across from us are on honeymoon - with HER MOTHER..
He was right! It was a young girl and her partner, both about 30, with an older woman with them. Good grief. Now we sit, drinking our hot chocolate and resting our very weary feet. Even with sneakers on, the most experienced walker is no match for cobblestone all day.
No comments:
Post a Comment