“No-one ever goes to Belgium on purpose”

So said our British colleagues as we told them that we were heading to Bruges for the weekend, although it’s hard to understand why as we found it to be absolutely delightful!

At 6pm on Friday evening Kylie and I were joined by Kalem (one of my University basketball friends), Julia and Rochelle (two of Kylie’s Hamilton friends) and ‘the official road trip crew’ was formed. We left from the Hubert Hub for a casual drive to Dover, and despite the rain and the traffic we managed to arrive well early at the ferry due to Kylie’s organised 9.30pm booking. After breezing through customs, despite Rochelle’s outrageous flirting with our French customs officer, we drove straight on to our Ferry and parked up for the ride.

Kalem and I spent the first 10 minutes on the ferry reading directions to try and attach stickers to our headlights in the correct position. Apparently headlights in the UK (and NZ) are aimed to the left which is no good if you’re driving on the right. Eventually we gave up and just stuck them on, I mean honestly who uses instructions? We then headed up a few flights to find the girls set up at a bar on the third floor already tucking into ciders where they had kindly bought me, the selfless driver, a diet coke... sigh.

The two hour trip flew by and before we knew it we were driving off the ferry into Calais and the unknown world of driving on the right hand side of the road. Luckily for all in the car, the motorway has a concrete barrier to keep me on the right side!
With the assistance of our Tom Tom we made our way to our apartment in the heart of Bruges. Kindly the owner had waited up for us and ran through all of the facilities in a very loud slow voice which reminded me of Dad at a Chinese garage sale. After the long commute we were all exhausted (apparently it is tiring being chauffeured through three countries), so we divided up the beds and slept soundly for the night.

Our Saturday started with a relaxing sleep in before we ventured to the main centre market. It was a quick five minute walk along the cobbled roads, between the old tall pointed buildings and over the canals, just long enough for us all to build an appetite which meant very different things to each of us. Kylie was busy hunting out fries with mayo, the others wanted waffles and I was keen for a Belgium sausage (mind out of the gutter Kate). Needless to say I prevailed and we all had sausages in baguettes, but this was followed by a second course of fries with mayo... and another sausage for me. The markets were fun as always with everything from clothes and jewellery to live turtles which we were tempted to smuggle back to London. Before we got stuck into more sightseeing we had to stop for waffles where most went for strawberries and cream... all except Kylie who of course went for strawberries, as well as chocolate ice-cream and chocolate sauce (sadly as always Kylie’s happiest moments in all of these travels seem to be when she is inhaling something sweet). After gorging themselves the ladies insisted that we all needed to walk off the waffles although seeing as I had resisted I don’t know how this was fair! We headed to the famous Belfort tower which is a clock/bell tower which overlooks the city, paid our exorbitant ticket price (except Kylie who got in as a youth on account of being just a few months younger, but still in the 25 years age bracket) and hiked the claustrophobic 366 stairs to the view of roof tops... great times.

Still insisting on more sightseeing we went to the Holy Basilica where they held a vial of Christ’s blood. It was a nice church as they all are over here with painted walls and nice stained glass windows. But unfortunately Rochelle said she needed some air (maybe she said let’s get a beer, good catholic girl), so we went to find a pub for some of Belgium’s finest. Disappointingly for all it started to rain so we had to stay for a second. Even more disappointingly it fined up again so we booked ourselves into a restaurant for later in the evening and set back to the apartment.
After showers, make-up, hair straightening, trying on outfits, selecting shoes, trying on more outfits, touching up make-up and changing shoes again, Kalem and I were finally ready to join the girls and head out for dinner. We went to a quaint restaurant and had a nice three course meal before we ventured to a pub which famously served over 250 different types of beer! The girls went for such delicacies as coconut beer and passion fruit beer, and Kalem and I tried, well, a lot. Retrospectively I should have maybe had one less, as a brief walk outside resulted in me getting rather lost with all of the tall pointy building looking the same. Not being able to find the bar I managed to find my way home where the team was waiting. Needless to say we slept very well again in our cosy apartment.

Sunday morning had us heading back into the centre for a nice brunch before we packed the car and started our journey home, via France of course. On the way we detoured through Dunkirk hoping to take in some WWII history, but unfortunately due to time constraints we had to head back to Calais... This was when we had our one driving incident. Instead of sticking to the ‘lefty loosey’ rule, I mistakenly turned a ‘lefty tighty’ and was faced with an oncoming car (don’t worry Mum it was a 30km area... maybe 50km), anyway will a less than manly squeal I stopped just in time and the other car casually drove around me... or they beeped profusely and yelled and shook their fist, it was one of the two. Anyway we survived and got on the ferry in one piece.

Glad to be heading back to a ‘normal’ driving country, we were greeted by the white cliffs of Dover. Once we got off the Ferry we drove up to the cliffs for some photo opportunities and exploring. Basically they are just cliffs made of white chalk, which makes a right mess of the floor mats in your nice Audi. Escaping the rain we wound our way back to London stopping at Pleasure Beach and then a lovely English pub near Maidstone which had been there since the 17th century! A great way to finish a great easy weekend. Bring on Barcelona this weekend and Prague and Berlin with Cara the weekend after.

Love to all, sorry it’s not the usual Kylie standard, I’m sure she’ll be back next time.