Belgium: October 27-30

From Edinburgh we boarded an evening ferry headed back to the continent for a sweeping European road trip. Craig's surfer cousin, Gary, was quick to excitedly tell us about the monster of a storm that was whipping the North Sea into a frenzy, following almost the same route as our proposed sail. So, after popping some drowsy motion sickness tablets and a five hour delay later, we finally set off for Belgium. The ride was pretty smooth after all and we were in the flat landscaped paradise of beer and chocolate by morning.

We stayed in Brugge for 2 days, strolling through the very beautiful and old walled city. Still canals snake around the picturesque city, our map advised us of many 'romantic spots' -views down narrow cobbeled lanes, low bridges arching over the canals, parks aflutter with autumn leaves. We walked until exhausted, somehow buying a museum combination ticket and torturing ourselves with too many museums, art, art and history. We also took in lots of religious sites, a large convent with mysterious leaning trees (see photo above), unusual architechture and a very peaceful and active chapel where we listened to nuns singing their evening prayers. We also got to make a special prayer resting our hand on a vial of Christ's blood. It was kind of creepy, this ornate tube of crusted black gunk.

We also pursued the delightful flavors of Belgian chocolate and beer, both so much tastier than in any other countries.

We stayed at a B&B run by an elderly couple who spoke to us in French only and played extremely strange and cheery music for us at breakfast.

Unlike our Summer European trip where we stayed with lots of friends, we expected this trip to eat into our budget, being too cold to do much camping and not knowing anyone in the countries we planned to visit. Belgian people were friendly, we made a few friends here and there, and met a wonderful couple who were seated next to us at a restaurant on the second night. They told us about a bar where we could find hundreds of different beers, a whole (and thick) menu containing nothing but beer. We went allong and our new Belgian friends, Valerie and Dominique (pictured below) were avid naturalists and hikers, even having written a book about their treks in New Zealand and we got allong very well. They offered their home to stay in, and we decided to extend our stay so as not to miss one of those great travel opportunities. We exchanged lots of stories and got to know each other well. It was then, while we were talking to them about travelling and hiking etc., that we remembered CouchSurfing. We found ourselves recommending it to them when we had forgotten to use it ourselves, a rediscovery that changed the rest of our trip.