Ah, Belgium. The beer and chocolate capital of the world. Don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise. What an adventure getting here however.

It all started in Florence. You cannot take an overnighter from Florence to Northern Europe. You have to go through Milan. Well, let me tell you Milan is the craziest train station I have ever been to in the world, period. Insanity. We try to reserve a couchette to Antwerp or Brussels. The guy literally laughed at me. No deal. He tells me to go on the platform and ask one of the conductors if there is any room on any train north. It's that booked on everything going out of this major hub of Europe. Glad we knew this before hand.

So we go up to a platform and Steph and Frannie start sweet talking a German rail steward and guess what, for $40 American he has a couchette available for us on the train to Cologne where we can connect to Brugge. Well it wasn't so simple. Apparently this was kind of a dirty linen room or something and our friend, Peter's, boss was cruising around quite a bit. He basically locked us in there before the train took off so his boss wouldn't find us stow aways. So here we are in this stifling couchette waiting to get going. We finally take off but there is an electrical problem with our car. We're stuck in Lake Cuomo for like an hour. It hot and muggy and we're dying.

We finally get going and Peter finally opens up the door and feels pretty sorry for us so gives us some beer and sandwiches. It's crazy on the train with all these young German school kids coming back from vacation. Peter is obviously in his element leching on the young girls and getting buzzed. What a night.

After arriving in Cologne we have a direct train to Brugge luckily. We get to Brugge sometime midday and immediately go to a pension and check in. It is nice and cool here with it looking like it might rain. A wonderful change from the stifling heat of Italy. Brugge is a beautiful town. It is one of the few in Europe completely preserved from the 14 th century. At its height of power Brugge was one of the leading powers in Flanders and an important port. It's canaled and has many huge gothic cathedrals towering over the city displaying it's former wealth. It's really a charming city but also a pretty large tourist destination. We came to wind down before going home and of course drink some beer.

Hands down Belgian beer is the best in the world. One of my main goals was to go to the bar with 250 beers on tap. Sadly I was thwarted again at this endeavor. The owner was on vacation. This happened to me 7 years ago also. What luck. Anyhow, there are other places to drink in this town and we found a few. Some of the many good beers are Brugge Triple, Petrus Triple, Rodenbach, and of course Chimay. They are very distinct full bodied, and complex beers.

After having a few we go to this restaurant called the Hobbit which is supposed to be pretty well know here in town. Actually it's across from the 250 beer place. We head in there pretty early like 5:00 and immediately annoy the "Baby Hobbit" who is the owner's son by asking him if he is the Hobbit. The place is full of nick knacks and what not. Pretty cool but no big deal. Like a cooler version of TGI Fridays. Were having a good time but Baby Hobbit is no mood for our "American" shenanigans. No need for the guy to get snotty over an innocent mistake. It's not like his restaurant is the best thing going in town. I thought it was pretty average Indo inspired food. Then before we left he shows us his "Eye of Sauron" ring. What is this guy's trip?

Well al good things must come to end and we are headed back to Amsterdam for our flight home.

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