Rick Gregory, Writer

Translating Messages From Heads To Hearts

Day 7 – Bruges & the Choco Story

It was a bit sad to leave the Aquarius B & B this morning where Magda took such good care of us. She was an absolute delight and served the most amazing breakfast. Buttery chocolate croissants, yogurt, fresh bread, some kind of fresh cheese, fresh orange juice and her own homemade jelly. 

Don't like changing rooms

It was about a 15 minute walk to our new hostel, the Hostel 28, where we again have a private room with an ensuite. That means you don’t have to share bathrooms with other travelers and instead have one in your room. I know. We expect that . . . but lots of European travelers don’t!

Choco-Story Left me hungry

This city is amazing. But it isn’t without it’s tourist traps either. And the Choco Story Museum might be one of them. For us old ones, it only cost 9.5 euros for the 1.5 hour ordeal (emphasis intended). There are 70+ stations at which you activate a little hand recorder that plays the info for each particular location. The script is OK, but the information is an overload of minutiae that gets old soon. Maybe the best thing about the tour was the little tasting room at the end where you could eat as much as you wanted of 4 different styles (flavors) of chocolate; of course there was dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, and by far my favorite, a medium brown (maybe amber?) blend that is made NOT with the cacao itself, but with the cocoa butter that is the spin-off of the dark making process. It was heavenly!

The highlight of today was our visit to Saint Salvator’s Cathedral. At first, I thought, “OK, another church. Really?” But we decided to go in and check it out. Oh. My. Gosh. Am I glad we did! There are so many unbelievably beautiful original art pieces, sculptures, hand-woven tapestries; and the architecture. We couldn’t get over how beautiful the place was – and how it brought about a sense of holiness just being there. Here are a few photos to taunt you: click on each photo to give you a sense of the majesty!

To top it off, you can’t visit Bruges without indulging in a gelato from Gelataria Da Vinci. Lines out the door all day! We finally got in after a mediocre fish & chips dinner at a restaurant on the Markt Square

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