We have just spent a lovely weekend in beautiful Brugge. It is a lovely city of medieval buildings, cobblestone streets and canals.

We spent our first day just exploring the city. We did a self guided walking tour around all the main sights plus some further out from the main tourist haunts. It was lovely. Although packed with tourists there was a relaxed, gentle atmosphere to the place, which made for very pleasant wanderings of its streets. And very pleasingly, there were Belgium chocolate shops everywhere, which of course I sampled.

The next day we hired bikes and decided we'd ride to a coastal town on the North Sea. It was such a beautiful ride of about 25km in each direction. We followed a canal for a long while, passing peaceful farms and big old Dutch windmills, before taking a detour into a town to see a castle (which we couldn't find!).

We had a perfect sunny day at the coast, and after ice cream went to the beach. It was nowhere near as nice as Aussie beaches - the water was not so clear and the sand not so soft and white. But still, after not having seen a coastline since Thailand, it was lovely. Dan wasn't keen, but I braved the freezing waters of the North Sea and went for a swim. Very refreshing (i.e. cold!!).

After some sun baking it was time to find some hot chips. Belgium is very proud of the fact that they invented fries (there is even a whole museum in Brugge dedicated to fries, or frittes, as they are known here). So strangely, we couldn't find a single fritte shop along the coast. Very disappointing, and crazy for a country that has fritte vendors everywhere to not have one near the beach. Resigned to riding back to Brugge on an empty stomach, we set off. Luckily along the way we found a fritte shop for some energy. Although only 25km each way and very flat, the ride felt tough sometimes. I have definitely lost most of the bike fitness I'd gained for the ride to Mt Kosciusko last year! But it was a wonderful day by the sea with a beautiful ride, and we definitely slept well that night!