We spent the next couple of days in Bruge, where we caught up with our friends from Melbourne, Alan and Irene.

Bruge is a very picturesque city set on a series of canals, all with plenty of white swans floating around them. They are especially famous for 5 things: chocolate, speculoos (cinnamon cookies), Belgian waffles, beer and lace. We managed to sample all of these things (some in abundance) during our stay.

The chocolate was absolutely to die for and we certainly reduced the citys stores of the stuff while we were there.

We also visited a lace factory where the old ladies still come daily to tat and you can watch them and ask questions. We spoke to a lovely lady who spoke English perfectly since she was relocated to England during the war. The oldest lady in the room was 83 and had been tatting for her entire life. Lidia and I were gobsmacked at how quickly she was manipulating the spindles to make her piece.

The apartment we stayed at was an AirBNB and turned out to be a full 3 story, architecturally designed apartment. The owners (and architect) lived next door and Sophie was so lovely, giving us lots of advice (and Belgian cheese!)

We had a great time catching up with Irene and Alan and we visited a brewery with them, sampling many Belgian beers. We also caught up with them for dinner on the last night, prior to which Alan and I discovered a fantastic male shoe shop and both bought a pair of very funky shoes. We both wore them to our final dinner.