Bruges Part 1: Food

Hello everyone! After a bit of an absence, I'm back with a vengeance and with some lovely blog posts on....Bruges!

My boyfriend and I had a lovely little weekend here, hopping on the ferry from Hull and landing in Belgium the next day.

It's been tough trying to decide how to divide these posts up, so I thought it was best doing it in very vague categories. The first, as you can see, is food. Food is certainly a cause very close to my heart, and Bruges was an absolute dream for it! The culture in Bruges is centred around beer, in that they take it super seriously and intend for it to be drunk slowly and enjoyed. Chocolate appeared to be a secondary thing, and boy do they do it well:

Firstly, for all you fiends out there....the chocolate! This will largely be in photo form, but I will try and explain it as I go along. There were lots of different hot chocolates I got to try while on my little getaway, including stir-in sticks and spoons. By far the most impressive was the standard melted chocolate and milk:

Drool

As you can see even the boyfriend is super happy:

We also ordered the chocolate tasting plate (totally not overindulging....) which was a great idea, if not chocolate overkill. A handy tip folks - most hot chocolates in Bruges are already served with a little side plate of chocolate, so you really don't need to order more!

After dinner some nights, we found that we still needed something sweet. Most chocolate shops in Bruges will allow you to buy the bare minimum of 100g of chocolates, which you can then eat like a takeaway. The little sugar hit was just right, and it was usually fairly cheap price-wise.

Some of my favourite things in the chocolate shops were the chocolate boxes that were actually made of chocolate:

As well as random chocolate objects:

Chances are in Bruges, if it's not solid chocolate it will be praline (a lovely nut-flavoured filling), and I was in HEAVEN:

Now for the Beer.

In Belgium, Beer matters. The focus is on drinking slowly and savouring it, rather than getting blind drunk. As an ignorant drinker, Bruges was the place where I finally found out that each brand has its own glass, to enhance the flavour:

Another fun fact: in Belgium, beers are only allowed to be served in either brown or green bottles, as in the sun the hops react to create a horrible smell and taste (which you can't sense unless you have a large glass). To be honest, I'm not fussy. I do love my fruit beer though:

There was also an epic Beer Wall near our hotel:

Other food? Definitely Mussels and fries. They were everywhere, from high-class restaurants to takeaway outlets in the squares, and so can cater to any price bracket:

And so, that's it for my Bruges food round-up! Keep your eyes peeled for my next one on this amazing city....