Crepes Suzette and Riot police.....

March 4th

Say good bye to our cute, homey, lovable B&B, and Lut the caretaker. We drop our bags at our new Hotel and off to grab some bikes. We rent some bikes grab a sammie for later and off on a little ride to Damme. This little 14th century village is just 10 kl down the canal another 7 will get us to the border. The wind is right in our faces but we keep pushing on. Our bikes are new and roll quit well but we are still fighting the wind. We get to Damme and a cloud sets over us giving a cold welcome. We decide to have our sammie for a snack and just open a beer when the town church clock goes off. It was quite cool, unlike normal church clocks. It had a lot of bells instead of just one. It sounded like chimes going off with an actual music tune. Just an excellent way to announce/celebrate the opening of the first beer of the day and our arrival in Damme. This is a nice village but not much to do here this time of year. A quick walk around and back on the bikes. It is a much easier ride back towards Brugge.






The wind is at our backs and the sun is shining. It is a great vacation day. We pass by quit a few old windmills along the outer canal of Brugge on out return trip. As we head back to the center of town I noticed we are on the same straat as one of the beer bars. When we stopped we found it was closed. Seriously another one closed this one permanently. Right next-door was a beer store with a small tasting room in the back so we stopped in. The shop was owned and run by Rudy, a very likeable and knowledgeable guy. Rudy told us that the Kelk, beer bar next door, didn’t pay their bills so they were kicked out. But Rudy was still there with beer and stories so what do we care.
With our thirst quenched we look for a bite to eat to eat. We stop into a little kebaab place. Barry White is on the stereo. This is like the 3rd time we have heard him. He must be big in Belgium. I feel sexy just being in Belgium. Not back to the hotel, we have to drop off all this heavy beer we are carrying around. As we regroup in the hotel we lay down on the bed, not a good idea. Foe about an hour we are “stay awake, sleep, stay awake, sleep.” Rule is one of the four eyes has to be open at all times. Alright back out there we go. We are headed out to take care of a few things; checkout the train station for time on our trip to Ostende tomorrow and to drop off the bikes.
All these errands have me thirsty again, ahhh Brugge Beertje and Daisy. Just the kind of beer joint I have been looking for. These people know their beer. There seems to be a beer tasting in town or near for distributor the next day so the bar is a buzz with people that frequent the place when in town.
Okay after a few we are off again to explore a part of the city we have not yet seen. A small walk through the park in town and we arrive at L’Estaminent for dinner. Pretty unimpressive as you walk in, this place grows on you. We look at the menu, none of it in English and we are underwhelmed. The waitress finally comes by and wow, she is very helpful cute as hell and running the whole bar by herself. We decide to just grab a few beers and split a soup. The fish soup was amazing. The spices and flavor were perfect. As we were leaving we meet a Belgian woman with her husband from England. They were very friendly and we wished we were not on our way out so we could sit and talk with them.
Walk to find more beer and maybe a waffle. How does it continue to be possible to be in Belgium and not have waffles on every corner. ...
As we wander through the streets we come upon a group of people marching down the street. We can hear banging drums and what sounds like singing; maybe a high school marching band is practicing in the streets of Brugge.... We pass the group as well as the trash can drums. Seems harmless enough, as we come around the corner we are walking into a wall of what look to be riot police. They are completely covering the street right to left. We are not exactly sure what to do, Chris does a few hand signs that we hope are interpretive as should we move out of the way. They just continue to walk towards us sternly paying no attention to us, and pass right by. Two blocks later, as we have somehow found our way behind them, we see they have blocked more streets. We continue to be allowed through. We don’t see them the rest of the evening, but are sure we hear the drums in the night. This is when it would be an ideal time to speak the language, or at least interpret enough to read the front page of the paper tomorrow. We will need to investigate with our hotel clerk. Stay tuned on that one.
Still looking for waffles. We decide another dessert will have to do.
We stop in at ter halle on the square. Crepes Suzette to share and a couple of Irish coffees. Funny how a few beers and soup cost us 26 euro but shared dessert and two coffees cost us 36 euro. The Irish coffee did come with a shot of alcoholic eggnog on the side. We would come here again. Lovely place, dark and with lots of character, and we are warmed by the fire. Lovely time.
Back on the job trying to find t’Poatersgat, monk’s hole, the beer cellar of an old church. The tiny door that we had to duck to get into was finally open. About time. We enter into slightly smoky air filled room with stone walls, rock pillars with arched brick ceilings and marble floors. We can tell this is going to be a favorite. We ask the friendly bartender their hours. He states, 7 days a week, we open at 5pm and close, well it depends. Weekends 4 or 5 am. No wonder they aren’t open until 5pm. Trish has her favorite Kriek yet, we will need to come back. But tonight we are calling it and heading back to Hotel Patricius. Good Night.