After our first few days in Amsterdam, we hopped on a couple trains to Bruges, Belgium. I am so thankful our friends took charge and played travel guides. It was nice to just follow along and go with the flow.

We made a transfer at Antwerp Station. How stunning is this architecture?!

We were in Bruges part of Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of Thursday. Bruges has a very different vibe than Amsterdam. It’s more of a small town. The people were super friendly and helpful as we made our way to our hostel. Bruges has beautiful architecture. We felt like we had stepped into a Disney town! Plus, the weather was warmer and there wasn’t as much wind as there was in Amsterdam.

We shared an 8-person room at St. Christopher’s Bauhaus and would not recommend it at all. Our room had black mold, there was vomit on the walls and in the sinks of the bathrooms, you had to pay a €10 deposit to rent a towel, the bar adjoining the building decided to move pallets down our hall at 7am… It was fine for the couple of nights we were there, but we advise you avoid this place.

And on that happy note, see how pretty Bruge’s Market Square is!

We stopped at the open air market Wednesday morning and got warm, fresh Belgium waffles! They were beyond delicious. David said if those waffles were available in Michigan, it’d put the family out of business! (David’s family produces maple syrup.) They were light and crispy, and kind of tasted like a cinnamon roll, even though there was no frosting on the outside. Delicious! We ordered a waffle with a lot of our meals. You can pay extra to get it with Nutella and strawberries or with ice cream, or just have it with powdered sugar.

Speaking of food, our favorite place we ate at was Humpty Dumpty, just off of Market Square. They were very reasonably priced with many things to choose from their menu. I ordered the children’s spaghetti; it was the perfect portion and absolutely delicious. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t had great beef in a while, but their sauce was amazing! They had yummy waffles, too. David loved their paninis.

We also climbed the Bruges belfry:

We followed the steep 366 steps of the winding staircase:

Here we are peaking out of some of the windows in the stairwell:

The view at the top of the tower was fantastic!

I’m so glad we went to Bruges. It was a relaxing, beautiful place. They had lots of canals, too:

We were so blessed to travel with such a great group of friends:

We definitely had our share of Belgium waffles, street food, and chocolate!