Bruges, "Venice of the North"...

... or at least one of forty or so claimants to the title.

Travelled by train from Liege in Wallonia in the east of Belgium to Bruges in Flanders in the west. Two and a bit hours by train, costing €7.60 each way having bought a voucher for 10 train journeys anywhere in Belgium for €76 euros. Pretty impressed with Belgian railways. They also have a very good mobile phone app for calculating journeys etc.

We didn't do a lot in Bruges other than wander around to see the town and have lunch. We declined to climb the 366 steps of the famous bell tower on this occasion, visibility wouldn't have been too good from the top. Well, that's my excuse.

Today we just scratched the surface. We'll try to get back when the weather's a bit better, perhaps in the spring, but not so much better that it's crammed with tourists, which I'm sure it must be in summer.

When we got back to Liege we managed to find one of the bars listed in a sort of 'good beer bars' brochure that we'd picked up from the tourist office. We managed to get through the first six of the twelve beers that the 'BeerLovers Cafe' had on tap. Rounded off the day nicely.