BACK TO BELGIUM!

Day 204

Brugge, Belgium

From Amsterdam we headed off to Brugge! We'd heard it was THE PLACE to see in Belgium and we didn't get a chance to see it when we were last in Belgium so...we bought tickets from Amsterdam to Brugge.

It turned out we had to go via Antwerp to get there..and we ended up staying a few hours in Antwerp because of the rail problems. We're not sure why, but all the trains were delayed or slow in and out of Antwerp.

The train to Antwerp delayed us by 3 hours..and the train to Brugge should have taken an hour, as we were told at the ticket office, but it took 21/2 hours!

So....we were VERY TIRED and disgrunted to say the least...

But..we did have a lovely lunch at THE ROYAL CAFE in Antwerpen Train station. Gosh, talk about grandiose. SO much gold!!! At least that made us happy for a while.

We arrived in Brugge in the evening..once again with no accomodation....and if you look at the pics of us under the sign at Brugge it will say it all.

NOT HAPPY JAN.

Due to this we had to cancel our meeting the next day with our Antwerpen friends, due to the feeling we wouldn't make it to the airport in Brussels in time for our flight to London. We booked a direct ticket to Brussells instead of veering off in Anterp again.

There must have been rail strikes. From what we could gather, all the Belgian train stations were doing HUGE renovations. All the train stations are in chaos. And a huge mess. The trains are slow, old and cumbersome and there is no english on the train at all.

At one stage...midway to Brugge...the train just STOPPED. IN the tracks on the edge of a station and everyone started disembarking. Greg said..we don't move, this is NOT our stop.

And once everyone was off..and one of the last couples told us there was trouble so we had to get off and change trains, we did....

Geepers. Talkabout miscommunication.

We were wondering why we bothered to even go to Brugge!

Was it worth it????????