TRAVEL::EUROPE 2011::BRUGGE::PART II

And so the story continues...

The city center of Brugge (Dutch) or Bruges (French) is a popular World Heritage Site of UNESCO. So, do not be surprised that you run into loads of tourist when you visit this historical city center. We came here because of this little medieval town and its architecture. They have done such a good job in preserving this old town. Majority of the medieval architecture are still intact here.
You can practically walk to any part of this little town you like. The narrow cobble-stoned streets are cycling friendly and most of the locals here cycle around to run their chores because of the limited parking spaces within the old town. So, when you are walking on the street, you need to be careful not to step on on the horse dung and being hit by crossing cyclists.

Let's talk about food...and of course beer.

On the first night here, as we arrived late, we had set dinner at the restaurant at the market square after searching for 30 minutes without any clues to dine. We paid 18.50 euros for each set. My set started with soup. Spare ribs, salad and fries as main course . It ended with two scoops of ice cream as dessert. Her set had smoked salmon as starter and stewed chicken as main course. 

The cheapest dine-in food we had here was beef stew with salads and chips which is just 10 euros. 
 
The restaurant we went is located a few turns away from the market square. As you can see, the further you walk away from the square, the less you pay for the food. Sometime.

Belgium is famous of its beer. There is a wide variety of beer to choose from. We saw on a beer wall at a brewery here that Belgium has about 780 types of beer. A 0.5l of draught beer costs you about 5-6 euros. The price is also depends on the location of the restaurant and the type of beer. Personally, we like Leffe Dark and also white beer.
 
Local weekend market is also something we are looking for when we arrived at a destination. The market gives us a glimpse of how the local lives and what they eat. Just ensure that it is the market which most of the local goes and not some tourist flea market. Every Saturday morning, there is a weekend market at one of the squares here. You can find wide variety of stuffs here, from clothes to raspberries. So, please stay over the weekend here if you can.

You can view the complete set of photos I took in Brugge here.