In Bruges before seeing the movie

Get the movie out. Get the movie out. That's all people keep telling me.

No I not seen the movie. I look at the situation as being like a book reading purist. I decided to see Bruges for myself before watching it on DVD. Be it because as I've heard there's a lot of violence. And I didn't want to think everyone in Bruges is a hitman.

Incidentally half my struggle in writing about my experience here was merely which spelling do I use. Apparently only us English and French use Bruges. The rest, including locals, use Brugge. I'm Australian, so I'll write it in both and decide I'm right either way.

Anyway. Bruges. It is one of those must see cities of the world. I only spent 1 night there. When I get the chance I will go back and spend more time. It's that good.

The streets are quaint. Cobblestone town centre with all nooks and crannies.

The canals all through the city are very historical if not just overly touristy. Heck I took the canal boat ride on the long boat with the rest of the tourist. I can confirm the guide had obviously been doing the tour for quite some time. After establishing that most of the tourist were of English language background, or could understand it as a common language he then proceeded to complete the tour in full monotone. Seriously he was like, "On the left of the canal we have an old building constructed in 1724." Reading between the lines I heard his next line "Oh someone just shoot me now. I can't do this anymore." This guy really sounded like he hated his job.

After walking the streets and completing the customary ABC Tour (Another Bloody Church) I can confirm they have Belgian Chocolate, and Belgian Beer. In fact I did the local Brewery Tour just to make sure. Incidentally the guide at the Brewery was much more a character. She was one of those middle aged real matronly ladies. Very dry in her delivery of humour. Hardly would skip a beat. Whenever she had the chance she'd justify beer as the solution to every health ailment or social issue. Loved her job by the sounds of it. I suspect the owners still allow their staff a few bottles of beer a day. And they had recently introduced a quadruple strength beer of some 9% or 12% alcohol. Some ridiculous level.

Anyway that night I was going to do a pub crawl tour. Probably a good thing I didn't. Belgian beers would have taken their toll. And it leaves me something for next time.