In Bayeux

We are staying at the Chateau La Cheneviere in Bayeux.  

We have this wild room on the top floor of the main house.  We have our own private staircase off the 2nd floor.  And, Yes!, that's the tub and shower in the room.

The restaurant at the hotel has a very good reputation for the area.  We were too tired from our travels to venture out last night so we ate here. 

Everything was wonderful except the dessert.  Dessert looked good but did not taste great.  Butch had that weird meringue thing on the right. My chocolate cube was hard and just not chocolate enough. Perhaps I'm just spoiled from having been in Belgium.  

This morning we are touring the WWII sites.  I hired a guide from the hotel.  

Belgium was so yesterday

We had a wonderful classic Belgium dinner at De Koetse last night.  Butch overheard some people in our hotel talking about a really good restaurant so we followed the people to it.

I've never had a screwdriver with fresh squeezed OJ

It is late in the tourist season so Bruges was quiet in the evening.  I imagine all the squares are swarming with people in the summer months.

The Pand Hotel was fine except for the coffin-like elevator.  I never did get in it. I climbed the 3 flights of stairs every time.

View from our bathroom window

After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we left Bruges this morning for our journey to Normandy.  Google said it would take close to 5 hours for the trip to Bayeux.  The trip went mostly smooth except for the toll booths and the gas station.  We stopped for gas and the machine would not accept my credit card. I know about 100 words in French and most of those are food related so I could not string any of them together to explain to the attendant that the pump was broken.  With a few trips back and forth and a lot of hand signs, she finally understood and turned the pump on.  Each toll booth was a different new puzzle for us to figure out.  I can see why the highways in France are so nice.  We spent about $50 in tolls to get here.

View of the Normandy bridge from the road

This is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western world.

We stopped in the charming Honfleur on our way to Bayeux.

Notice how skinny the houses are.  When these were built, people paid taxes on the width of the building and not the height.  

The wooden Ste. Catherine Church in Honfleur looks like an upside down boat. This is what happens when a group of fishermen build a church.

They also have pews with reversible backs so you can either worship or listen to the organ.

We climbed up to the Cote de Grace.  The book said it was a steep climb.  Butch and I were like "how steep could it be." We knew we were in trouble when the path turned into a series of switchbacks.  However, the view was worth the climb.

That's the city of Honfleur and the Seine River with the Normandy bridge in the background.

I'm including this picture of Butch and I but not because it is a particularly good picture.

We are laughing because we asked this group of frenchmen - 1 man and 3 women - to take the picture. The guy took our camera and the 3 woman proceeded to yell at him to get just the right background.  We have a bunch of these pictures and all are not great but watching the guy try to satisfy the 3 women was priceless.

After Honfleur, we traveled to our hotel in Bayeux but more on that tomorrow.

Is that chocolate I smell?

Bruges is absolutely charming and the perfect stop-over city.  For a bonus, it also smells like chocolate.

After a quick lunch of mussels and frites (yum!)

we followed the Rick Steves' walking tour of Bruges.

One of the stops is the Basilica of the Holy Blood.  You have to climb up at least 2 flights of stone circular stairs to get to the Basilica.  This church is famous for supposedly having some of Christ's blood brought back to Bruges by a knight of the Crusades.  Here I am viewing the relic.  Butch had to hide behind a large stone pillar out of view of this scary church lady in order to take the picture.

The highlight of any visit to Bruges is the Michelangelo statue in the Church of Our Lady.  This is the only Michelangelo statue known to have left Italy during his lifetime.  My readers might remember this statue from "The Monuments Men."

After a stop for waffles, when in Rome and all,

we ended our afternoon walk with a tour of the De Halve Maan Brewery.  This brewery was recently in the news for building the first ever beer pipeline.  It was the most enjoyable brewery and/or wine tour that I've ever been on.  In addition to the details about making beer, the guide detailed the importance of beer to Belgium.

We are currently relaxing in the hotel lobby before wandering back out to explore the city in the evening.

If it's Wednesday then it must be Belgium

We left Amsterdam this morning via the train on tickets for which I may or may not have paid.  I thought I had bought return tickets for the ride back to the airport but the tickets did not seem to work so we got on the train anyway.  Sometimes "Better to ask forgiveness" can be a fine travel strategy.

Picking up the rental car did not go as smoothly as one would have liked. The first car had a faulty parking brake and we did not even make it entirely out of the parking spot before it started to malfunction. We switched over to a Renault that is on the smallish side but perfect for driving in the old cities.

The trip to Bruges took about 40 minutes longer than expected due to some construction that Google Maps successfully routed us around.

We arrived in Bruges just before 1 pm.  We never had breakfast and were starving which means we were starting to get on each others nerves.  Note for tomorrow's much longer ride: get breakfast and coffee/tea before we leave.

We are staying at The Pand hotel.  It is cute and also well located.

View from the room

Sitting room

Last night in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is truly the city of bikes. They are everywhere zipping up and down bike paths.  I was jealous so I borrowed one from the hotel and rode around the city.

More bikes...

KFC delivery

A wooden bike

Floating bike parking lot

We toured the Red Light District this evening.  It was also as expected. What does it say that I was not the least bit shocked?  There are prostitutes in the windows, sex shops, sex shows and the strong aroma of weed and urine everywhere.  No pictures from there. I understand that it is a very practical solution to real problems but it was not the least bit interesting.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Bruges.

Touring Amsterdam

Today, we saw all the major tourist attractions.

We started with the Anne Frank house this morning. What do you say about this?  Moving? Disturbing? Powerful? I found it not nearly as disturbing as the concentration camp but it does bring to life the atrocities that people endured.

After that, we walked over to the museum quarter and visited both the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum.

The Rijksmuseum is the home of the Dutch masters with the highlight being Rembrandt's "The Night Watch."

Great cafe at the Rijksmuseum

But with uncomfortable seating

The Van Gogh museum was as expected but I kept saying to myself "all the good stuff is somewhere else."  I really enjoyed seeing his early work though.  I always think of bright landscapes so it was fun to see the contrast.  

We walked over 6 miles today and, true to form, are now resting at the hotel bar.  We love the way they scrape the foam off the beer.

Tonight, we will tour the Red Light District.  

The Dylan

Now that I'm more awake, here's a much better description of the hotel.

It's centrally located near all the popular tourist attractions and in the heart of the best Amsterdam shopping.  Butch and I walked to both the Anne Frank house and the museums and window shopped along the way.  This is the best shopping I've ever seen.  There is the occasional bigger brand but for the most part it is just boutique after boutique.

Canals near the hotel

There is a comfortable bar with a nice collection of Dutch-inspired cocktails.

My only complaint is the chairs in the lounge area.  There is a beautiful fireplace but the chairs are horrible.  We kept moving around trying all the different arrangements of chairs before just moving into a table in the bar area.  The chairs at the cafe at the museum were not much better.  With a sample size of 2, Butch has declared the Netherlands to be the place with the worst seating ever.

Obligatory view from our hotel room. This is the courtyard at the hotel.

We had breakfast at the hotel this morning.  Butch and I love a good hotel buffet.  This buffet was just ok including only cold items and an order of made-to-order eggs.  The breakfast is served in the same space as the hotel's Michelin star restaurant.