Bruges and back to Amsterdam

The drive to Bruges was pretty uneventful, but our rental car was driving us nuts! The car beeped anytime we went 2 km/hr over the posted speed limit (it knew!), if we switched lanes without signaling it would fight against us, and it would beep at us if it thought we needed to "focus on driving!" We searched all the menus and sought help online, but we did not have the right access to turn off that nonsense. Anyway, we arrived without tearing the car apart. Our B&B was in old Bruges, so we got to go through one of the original 14th century city gates, called Smedenpoort, just wide enough for a car. 

Then we managed to find street parking to drop off bags and make our way up to our room on the 4th floor (more tiny steep stairs!), in an attic space. The hostess left us directions on where to leave our car for free parking (at a park just outside the gate), which turned out to be fine and actually free! The room was cute, with two sleeping areas and a decent bathroom, with the door at the foot of the last set of stairs. There wasn't any A/C, but the windows pivoted in the center, as depicted in the first picture, and we opened them all and turned on the fans to air out the space and get a mild cross breeze. Hadley stuck her head out of the bathroom window, while I stood on our bed for the 3rd picture. 

All right, now to see about dinner. We tried a highly rated burger joint a few blocks away, but they didn't taste quite right, not that we had very high expectations. Oh well, time to explore Bruges a bit before bedtime. Turns out it was the last weekend of a pilgrimage, which apparently meant they had a carnival stuffed into the old town between us and the central square. Talk about a very strange juxtaposition with cheesy carny rides next to medieval homes and cobblestone streets. I was a bit disappointed, because that's not what we were expecting or wanting out of our Bruges experience. Luckily, we made it past the chaos and crowds to the Market Square for sunset. A large open area surrounded by shops, museums, restaurants, and the 13th-century belfort, this is the heart of Bruges. We stayed until the lights came on, and then headed back to our beds in the attic.

The next morning, we went down all the stairs to breakfast around 9. As a B&B, we were treated to a decent spread, but sadly, no Belgian waffles! I think our hostess was British, so we had hardboiled eggs in egg cups instead. The warm croissants were the best part! We ended up making sandwiches to go with the plates of cheese, meats, and bag of rolls, which came in handy during our day of exploring. We represented 'merica as we cleared the table of anything edible, like a swarm of locusts. Now back to Bruges. 

Our first stop was the Beguinage, a 13th-century abbey where the residents live in silence. It's still inhabited to this day, and signs reminded visitors to stay quiet while within the walls. Unfortunately, we witnessed several tour groups come through, so it wasn't quite as peaceful as it could have been. It seems word has gotten out about Bruges.

If we tried to ignore the tour groups, we could appreciate the scenery and imagine a quainter way of life. Bruges is filled with canals, and the ducks and swans had to compete with tour boats for water space. It was still duckling season, so we saw lots of little birds following their parents. On land, the horse-drawn carriages added to the charm, with very few cars on the roads in the inner city.

Aren't these two cute? I'm glad that they like to be around each other most of the time. 😊

After much walking, we mapped out a "free" toilet in the library, but since it was Sunday, it was closed. However, we did find a public, outdoor urinal and a free public, "self-cleaning" restroom for ladies down the street. I've got to say that we really missed the free bathrooms and complimentary iced tap water in the USA!! Also, Europeans still smoke, a LOT.

After a brief respite while we ate our "free" sandwiches, we went to a couple of cathedrals, including the Basilica of the Holy Blood where the pilgrimage was at its last day to see a vial said to contain Jesus' blood. No pictures were allowed of that, but here we are in the square about to see it (it's discreetly in the corner of these buildings). It was only about a 10-minute wait. For those keeping score, this is our 3rd relic of the trip! Also pictured: Church of Our Lady.

All of this walking made us hungry, and we still had to get Belgian waffles while in Belgium. Even better, dip them in Belgian dark chocolate and put them on a stick for mobility! Scrumptious! We enjoyed them in a park with a view of the Basilica in the background.

Then, we hit a few of Bruges' picturesque bridges and photo spots. Lots of other tourists, canal boats, and more swans!

Finally, we found the Halve Maan brewery, the original Bruges craft brewery, though fairly young for the city at just 170 years old. We enjoyed a sampling of the beers, while the kids ordered more Belgian waffles.

And we couldn't leave Belgium without taking some of its chocolate home! Luckily, we're all dark chocolate fans, so we got an assortment of truffles and bars with white chocolate, raspberries, nougat, Speculoos (we know them as "airplane cookies" or Biscoff), and hazelnut. Yum! I'm sure they're all marked up for tourist prices, but they were worth it!

The next morning after our B&B breakfast, we hit the road again to close the loop back to Amsterdam. We passed through a lot of rain around Antwerp, but it cleared up soon after. We made a stop at Kinderdijk, a world heritage site. Think classic 18th-century Dutch windmills, now add bikes. It doesn't get much more Dutch than that! We ate our leftover "sandwiches" from breakfast at a picnic table and rented bikes for a couple of hours, since we enjoyed our Alaskan biking so much. There is a whole network of trails over flat terrain, next to canals full of waterlilies and ducks, and the weather was perfect!

From there, it was a short drive back to Amsterdam, where our final two nights would be in a houseboat. We're going for all the stereotypes here. It was in a great location, not far from where we boarded our canal cruise a week prior, with two bedrooms, one of which was on the roof and had a good view of North Amsterdam. I wish I'd gotten a picture at night when it was all lit up!

Ah, Amsterdam... The wildplassen must be quite the problem.

After we dropped off bags and kids, we had to return the rental car, which was on the other side of downtown. We were able to navigate through rush hour traffic (mostly bikes, thick in every direction!), return the car in a parking garage (right next to our first hotel!), and use public transit to make the trip back to the houseboat. If I lived here, I'd definitely use a bike. It seemed like there must be as many bikes in this city as people! 

On our final day, we went to the library, mostly because we could see it across the water from the houseboat, and we have a habit of going to libraries on vacation (Alaska, Wisconsin, Connecticut, DC). Like all great libraries, the kids area made reading fun!

I liked that they displayed the teen graphic novels like records.

The library was 6 or 7 stories tall with central escalators all the way up and had a cafe on the top floor with an outdoor patio that looked back across the city. We could see our houseboat across the river. We ate lunch there, and best of all, the bathrooms were free!

After lunch, we had to cross the city through its narrow lanes (left) to make our Anne Frank ticket time. This museum is set up in the secret annex (and adjacent buildings) where 8 people, including Anne Frank, hid for 2 years during WWII. They didn't allow pictures inside, so this was the best I could do (right). It was a very moving experience, literally and figuratively. It was a bit like the Vatican where you just had to keep moving in a long continuous line...

Our last meal was Dutch pancakes, so we pretty much bookended our trip with pancakes. Not too shabby! The restaurant was the little round building to the left below, but they had a multi-tiered deck on the back with a view overlooking a canal. A fitting end to our time in Amsterdam! The next morning, we rolled our bags 10 minutes to the Centraal Station and hopped a train to the airport. 

Cologne, Koblenz, and Aachen

For our drive to Germany, we had some possible stops along the way in Eindhoven or Essen, but both would have been more outdoor walking, and it proceeded to rain, so we opted to just push through to our Airbnb in Cologne. It was only 2 hours away, so we got there a little earlier than our host was expecting. Apparently, this is an old school Airbnb where the host actually lives in the place we were renting. So we followed her to the included parking spot in a claustrophobic underground garage and then met some of her neighbors, while we dropped off our bags, and she offered us some cake. We declined the cake, but she gave us a tour of the 1 bedroom, 2 bath flat with a loft and wonderful natural light.

To give her some more time, we decided to go exploring. We walked to the Rhine River and down a path that led to some playgrounds. Eventually, we hung a right through a park, past a 200 year-old fort, and ended up at a Vietnamese restaurant on a main street for dinner. We witnessed a German toddler throwing a fit when her dad wouldn't let her dash out in the street ("Nein! Nein! Nein!"), which became a running joke for us the rest of the trip. 😂 Most of Cologne was damaged during WWII, so much of the architecture is modern and rather bland, but we did find a 12th century city gate that even had a portcullis, leftover from Severin's Wall.

The German public transit was fairly easy to navigate, and the famous Cologne Cathedral was on the agenda for the next day. It's difficult to put the scale of this building into perspective from a phone camera, but it seems to rise high above the rest of the city. It took over 600 years to be constructed and survived the bombing of the city in WWII, though it did sustain some damage. 

We got a brochure guide that hit the highlights of the interior, chief among them being the gold box behind the altar said to hold relics of the Three Wise Men. The main part of the church was very open and you could see from end to end pretty easily.  

We looked in detail at several of the beautiful stained glass windows, but were not really fans of the Richter window, a recent addition that looked like random pixellation (not pictured). Every niche had stunning artwork and centuries of history. It was a lot to take in. I thought for sure that the kids would want to climb the tower, but hunger got the better of us.

So we went in search of an authentic German brewhaus. Our host left recommendations for us, and Fruh was an easy walk from the cathedral. It's also apparently the second largest brewpub in Germany, second only to Munich's Hofbrauhaus. We got an assortment of schnitzel, sausage, and sauerkraut, with local Kolsch for the adults. We were expecting large steins, but they served beer in these dainty 200 ml glasses. Pretty delish, but nothing better than German food we've had in the States.

Rather than climb the stairs at the cathedral, we opted to walk around Cologne's Old Town instead. We ended up at Rathausplatz (we liked that the German word "Rathaus" fittingly meant city hall), with a central fountain surrounded by cafes, perfect for people watching while enjoying some ice cream. The 800-year old city hall had a clock tower that played Can Can music (Offenbach was born in Cologne) just before the hour and a face just below the clock stuck out his tongue and waggled his beard on the hour chimes. So charming!

One benefit to being in a flat, besides being able to spread out a bit, was access to laundry! Once I figured out the German instructions on the washer (you had to open the water valve manually), our clothes were able to air dry while we went exploring.

Hadley has been learning German on duolingo since last summer (can you say 'ausfahrt'?) and was very excited to try it out in Germany! Her one request for the trip was to go to a real German castle, so I got tickets for a tour of Marksburg Castle, about an hour south of Cologne in Braubach.

To get there, we drove through part of the Rhine Valley, which is dotted with hilltop castles next to the river. There are so many castles in this area that they say there's one castle every 2.5 km down the river! This is also wine country, so several hillsides were covered in vineyard rows. 

Marksburg is famous because it is the only hilltop castle along the Rhine that was never destroyed, despite its 800-year long existence. It only passed hands a few times and apparently played both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divisions that helped it to survive unscathed.

We got on an English speaking tour and were able to go inside, through hallways and gardens, up narrow winding stairs, and through the kitchen, wine cellar, and main bedroom.

Our favorite was probably the toilet, which was directly off the main dining hall, but had a door locked from the outside to prevent invaders from sneaking in through the loo.

They also had a pretty good collection of cannons, halberds, and suits of armor to tell the tale of castle defense and weaponry through the ages.

All in all, it was a good castle viewing, though we would have liked to explore a bit more! There were a lot more nooks and stairways to explore. We just don't have this kind of history in the States. Before beginning our descent back down the mountain, we ate at the cafe overlooking the castle and the Rhine on a warm, sunny afternoon.

As we headed back north, we stopped in Koblenz. We parked at the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, which overlooks the city across the river. Unbeknownst to us, they were having some sort of Ren Fair with all sorts of tents and people dressed up like medieval times, set up with bows and arrows, fire pits, and wares. Oh well, at least it was still free parking! The thing to do in Koblenz is to ride a cable car across the Rhine, so we did.

The cars go between the fortress and the Deutsches Eck (German Corner), which is that point jutting out into the water. Koblenz is where the Moselle River branches off from the Rhine.

It was Ascension Day, which is a national holiday, so there was a food truck festival happening in Koblenz in the park right where the cable cars land. There was an interesting mix of cuisines, including Texas barbecue! Needless to say, we did not try it.

It was a short walk to the Eck and we checked out the enormous statue of Kaiser Wilhelm on his horse. It was actually pretty warm, so we mostly stayed in the shade.

But we did admire the fortress from our new vantage point. This was also where the river cruise ships docked and passengers disembarked, so there was a lot going on. Luckily, several of the food trucks offered sweets, so we got some more ice cream for our cable ride back to the car.

After another night in Cologne, it was time for the Belgian leg of our trip, but first, Aachen. Aachen was the home of Charlemagne, and he was buried here over 1200 years ago. The style of the Cathedral is a bit disjointed as different parts were added on over the years, and the central octagonal dome limits the sight lines through the church, so it had a very different feel from the other cathedrals we'd seen on the trip. The interior is very ornate, like the mosaic ceiling, most of which had to be restored after the war.

We didn't make it to the treasury, but the shrine here is said to contain relics from St. Mary's cloak, John's beheading, and Jesus' swaddling clothes and loincloth. They are only brought out for viewing every seven years, so we just missed them in 2023. It was a fairly dark and solemn atmosphere.

After some time in the cathedral, we grabbed some gyros to go and headed west. A little piece of the Netherlands hangs down between Belgium and Germany, so we went through 3 countries today. Just east of Maastricht is the only American cemetery in the Netherlands where 8,200 American soldiers are buried. They had some of the local WWII history engraved in granite, including these elaborate battle maps.

There was a reflecting pool with a monument at the end, symbolizing the sacrifices made and the women left behind. The surrounding walls are covered in names of the missing, and the graves are marked by white crosses similar to Arlington National Cemetery. The local Dutch families adopt a soldier and tend to his grave through the years. It was a very peaceful, beautiful spot and a somber reminder of the cost of war.