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Today we had a day tour to Ghent and Bruge which went from 8:30am to 6pm. If we ever come back to Belgium, I'll definately stay near Bruge, I loved it. Beautiful, nice town and of course chocolate and waffle stores on every corner!! I bought up here with chocolate, we had a chocolate tasting as part of our tour and were told that the Belgium's export 50% of their chocolate then keep 50% of it inside the country for themselves as the average person there consumes 12 - 15kg per year OMG! So I bought some export chocolate and some Belgium kept chocolate however Matty wasn't pleased as I told him we cannot eat any of it until we get back home so we can share it with the families lol. Anyhoo, in Brudge we visited the Lake of Love (full of swans and ducks) and the Beguinage. Afterwards we did a walking tour of the town and saw the Church of Our Lady with the statue by Michaelangelo, the Market Square with its belfry and the Holy Blood Chapel. We then headed off to Ghent, another really nice town which is no so popular with tourists as it doesn't have the same atmosphere as Bruge with all the little shops and gardens, however there we visited St. Bavo's Cathedral home of the world famous 'Mystic Lamb' painting but of course as we have noticed during this trip, it was under restoration and couldn't be seen. We also saw important buildings from the Middle Ages - Belfry, St. Nicholas' Church and the Earl's Castle. It was a big day and I really enjoyed it. We were tired when we arrived back at the hotel so it was dinner, pack up ready to move on again the next day, and to bed. Apart from Bruge, I did not enjoy Brussels as I thought I would but I've been and seen for myself now.
Today we had a good sleep in (8am rise), had breakfast and got ready to leave Belgium. At the train station I bought some more chocolate before we left (couldn't help myself!!!). At 11am we took the train from Brussels to Paris and arrived at our hotel at 2pm. The Paris central train station is insanely big, confusing and busy! It took us two attempts of people helping us to find the metro. It was the first time on our trip where we've both looked at each other like "ummmm I'm lost here". Anyway, once we found the correct level in the station for the metro, we were fine and on our way. The hotel is located in the Latin Quarter, nice cute room, good size and amenities. We sat around figuring out where to buy the hop on hop off open bus tickets, dinner cruise tickets and possibly Disneyland tickets which we will do first thing in the morning now we've figured out the train system. About 4pm we decided to take the 20min walk and see ta daaa, the Effiel Tower! We saw the lines to use the stairs and the lifts and decided we would come back another time during our 6 day stay to climb it. We also plan to go see it at night all lit up :)
I've updated the blog for Amsterdam, Brussels and our arrival in Paris. I'll hopefully get to update the photos tomorrow night....so in the early morning for you guys at home.
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