a day trip to bruges

Ticket Seller: The tower is closed this evening.
Ken: No way, it's supposed to be open until seven.
Ticket Seller: The tower is usually open until seven, yesterday an American had a heart attack at the tower, today the tower is closed.
Harry: [Harry hands ticket seller 100 Euros] Here cranky, here's a hundred for you. We're only gonna be twenty minutes.
[Ticket Seller crumples the money and throws it at Harry's head]
Ticket Seller: [tapping on Harry's forehead] The tower... is closed... this evening! Understand? English man!
[Ken walks up the tower while Harry proceeds to beat the ticket seller]

For this post, I struggled to find a quote from In Bruges--the foul-mouthed, violent, bloody, hilarious comedy--which didn't have the "f" word peppered throughout. It was hard work. What wasn't hard work, was making the decision to take a day trip from Paris to check out one of the most charming towns in Europe.

From Paris, it's a full day. You'll get on a bus with a bunch of other people, before the sun has even thought of coming up. And you'll get back in the evening--12 to 14 hours later. But it's worth it.

I'll let the pictures speak for itself, but here are the bullet points:

• See a beautiful old town.
• Take a fun boat ride through the canals of Bruges
• Sample incredible artisinal chocolates.
• Have a delicious Belgian lunch (mussels? beef stew with a Belgian brown ale gravy? the best fries in the world? a delicious waffle?)
• Shop for fun souvenirs?

Okay. Maybe I need to say a little bit more about the food, come to think of it. Pace yourself. There's so much good stuff to eat in Bruges, that you don't want to fill up on frites to the point where you can't finish that waffle you're going to get later.

The good news is that you don't have to drive the bus back to Paris, so you can just nap it all off! Oh, did we mention there's a French Fry Museum?

So, all in all, my visit to Bruges wound up to be nothing like the movie. No one died. There were no gunfights. Just lots of beautiful things to see, and incredible snacks throughout the day. What a relief!