Belgium - Bruges, Brussels and Ghent (65 images)

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Bruges is my favorite city in Europe - it's got that perfect mix of size, people, architecture, and for my money, the best square of any city in Europe I've been to.
Matheas, a bartender and hotelier at the Rose Red Cafe here in Bruges told me that Belgium is the most complicated country in Europe. Tucked neatly in between big powers of France and Germany, Belgium is at the crossroads of Western Europe. I found it one of the most pleasant, warm and inviting places I've ever been. It's people are well educated - most speak at least two languages, French and Flemish, and nearly all the ones I've met speak 3 or more, adding English and German to that list. Flemish is the primary language in the northern part of the country, and French is the primary language in the south. Flemish kind of like German, in that Italian is kind of like Spanish - similar yet totally different. The people are courteous and easy to have a conversation with - nearly all have more than a command of functional English, and I freely talk to them like I'm talking to an American. Only the lady at the fish market in Oostende I met yesterday didn't respond when I asked her a question in English. The gal at this little restaurant called Panos - kind of like a local organic Subway chain - was cleaning her place up and just talking to us like we were an American restaurant. Most are well-traveled and understand the difficulties we had in Italy with some of the customs, and shared our frustrations about the notoriously late Italian trains.
That said - it's obvious that I like Belgium quite a bit. Even though it's only about the size of Maryland, any visit to Europe isn't complete without a couple days here. For us, it was a great time to wind down a bit after the pace of 12 days in Italy. Today we took a side trip to the country's second largest city, Ghent, about 30 minutes away by train. Ghent is much larger and more urban - it's kind of like the child of Bruges and Munich, if you've ever been there. The downtown has incorporated its old, medieval buildings with its new ones, and its a thriving town of about 250K.
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