Belgium for Easter 14-17 April 2006

We had planned to go to Easter for the long weekend with our NZ friends Vicki and Nick, but as usual we had visa issues so Philip had to stay at home (on his birthday too poor thing!) so Suzy joined us. We caught the Eurostar (fantastic invention!!) and spent the first day in Bruges as it was no extra charge to use our Eurostar ticket to get there. First port of call was to try some world famous mussels (think De Fontein chain in NZ). They were a bitter disappointment as nothing can beat NZ green lipped mussels but we had to try them. We spent the afternoon wandering around the quaint city and visted the Chocolate Museum and of course many chocolate shops. We caught the train back to Brussels where we would spend the next two days. Basically the weekend consisted of a lot of beer and chocolate!! We visited a brewery that made beer in a style similar to champage and took three years to mature, they also brewed some of there beers with berries and they were delicious. We visited the famous Mannequin Pis statue (aka little boy peeing) and a bar that served 2500 beers! We also visited the most amazing, massive outdoor markets where I was able to stock up on herbs and spices. All in all a fantastic weekend, the only thing missing was Philip :( He had a good birthday though and celebrated it in London with his friends and family with a bbq. More photos at: http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbum.jsp?PhotoAlbumId=640421785