Yesterday was our longest day yet for this trip and our watches tell us the most walking in a day so far, as well. Since Lille is in the far northeastern corner of France, we found ourselves just an hour and a half away from Bruges, Belgium by train. In our preparation for the Normandy portion of this visit, we watched a lot of movies and series about WWII activity in France and the surrounding area, including the movie Monuments Men which is based on a book and the true story of a group of men who traveled around Europe during WWII attempting to locate and protect art while the Nazis were attempting to appropriate as much of it as possible for Hitler’s museum. Part of the story took place in Bruges with Michaelangelo’s Madonna and Child sculpture.

We booked a train the night before and got a fairly early start, but probably should have booked an earlier train, as there was a lot to see in Bruges, despite a relatively compact city center. Or more accurately for Becky, there were a lot of foods and beers to try and only so much that could be consumed within the six hour window we had given ourselves. We listened to an audio tour as we strolled through crowded streets, admiring bell towers, Gothic and Gothic revival architecture, cathedrals, and picturesque plazas. In the process, we ducked into a chocolatier and bought a selection of treats to sample as we walked.

Finally, we made it to the Church of Our Lady, the cathedral that houses the Madonna and Child sculpture. €8 per person allows you into the restricted area where the sculpture is displayed, which meant that we had a quiet moment to ourselves without jostling crowds to observe a piece of art that was considered so precious that men were willing to sacrifice their lives to protect it. The sculpture was especially significant as it was the first sculpture of Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime.

After our cathedral tour, Becky was getting pretty hungry and antsy to get her hands on some Belgian mussels and beer, so we stopped for lunch. The day was quickly becoming warm and sunny, so a cold, crisp Belgian beer on a shaded patio (and a tiny little Coke Zero for Chuck) really hit the spot. The mussels, fries, and Flemish stew did not disappoint, either.

After lunch, we booked a tour of the local historic brewery, De Halve Maan, which was scheduled for 45 minutes and was recommended on multiple “What to see in Bruges” lists. We were tight on time, but thought we could just manage to see the few remaining sites after the tour, grab a quick waffle and cone of fries, and grab the shuttle back to the train station. Unfortunately, while informative and quite engaging (the brewery has a unique two mile long underground pipeline to transport unfinished beer from the brewery in city center to their plant for maturation and bottling), the brewery tour ran long and was closer to an hour. The tour ends with a beer sample, which Becky imagined would be a tiny little sample cup of beer but turned out to be more like a pint, which needed to be consumed rather rapidly if we were to finish the rest of our tour and catch the train. To some extent, she was still enjoying the beer from lunch, even though the last sip had been consumed over an hour ago. Gulping down the second beer may not have been the wisest choice.

As we rushed to complete the rest of the tour, the sun was warm and high, with shade becoming increasingly scarce. Becky, feeling the effects of the beer and the sun was beginning to unravel (in the sweetest way possible), but fortunately hung in there. Sadly, we had to rush to catch our shuttle and didn’t get the opportunity to purchase the cone of fries, but we at least had some with lunch, albeit not in a cone, which is Chuck’s preferred fry distribution system.

We also missed our opportunity to purchase waffles in the city center, but found ourselves with just enough time to buy some from a shop outside the train station. We don’t know if they were as good as what we would have had in the city center, but they were so good that we don’t think we would want to know what we were missing.

Becky was able to recover from her poor life choices on the train back to Lille, where we then caught a metro to the area with the basketball arena. We got there reasonably early, but found a lighter crowd than we had encountered the night before, giving us more flexibility to check out a nearby fan zone and relax in the shade for a bit.

We had tickets for women’s basketball (USA vs Japan) and were pleased to see such a big turn out of Japanese fans. The US team won, but the Japanese team played very well. If our team was a foot shorter on average or their team was a foot taller, the end result may have been different. By the time we got back to our rented apartment it was nearly midnight and we both quickly got ready for bed and passed out for the night.

Today we’ve got a day long train adventure to Nice with one change in Paris. We’ll hunker down in Nice for most of the rest of our stay, with the exception of some day trips and a couple nights in Marseille.

Yesterday’s Highlights

• Beautiful architecture in Bruges
• Belgian chocolate
• Belgian beer
• “French” fries from their country of origin
• Belgian mussels
• Belgian beer
• Belgian waffles
• Supporting women’s sports and seeing another US win
• Not getting pick-pocketed

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures

• Sight-seeing around Nice
• Getting a little extra rest, perhaps
• Laundry in a real washing machine
• Women’s football (soccer): Canada v Colombia
• Hopefully not getting pick-pocketed