BITWRATHPLOOB World Tour

In Brugge
simon posted in Detours on June 9th, 2008

You know what wedding anniversaries are like. You take some time to plan it all out perfectly - grandparents visit and look after the kids while you slip away to a chic little guesthouse in a picturesque Flemish town, and an acclaimed restaurant in the evening.

And of course, you bring BITWRATHPLOOB along with you. What could be more romantic than sharing your celebration of five years of wedded bliss with a ‘Ploob?

He tried to grab forty winks nestled under the GPS on the 1hr 15 mins drive north from Brussels.

Once we’d arrived, he was refreshed and ready to soak up the olde worlde charm of one of Belgium’s prime tourist attractions, the UNESCO World Heritage site of Brugge. We fought our way through the crowds of geriatric tour groups, taking sanctuary in an establishment selling one of Belgium’s most successful exports. ‘Ploob seemed to feel right at home here.

More wandering, with many a scenic view to stand in front of.

Scenic and “Tourist Tat Shops” are what Brugge does best, and personally I’ve always preferred Ghent, but we usually choose Brugge for its proximity to several world class restaurants, so once we’d done a tour of the centre, we unceremoniously dumped ‘Ploob in our room, leaving him to gaze forlornly out the window while we went off to feed our faces.

We made it up to him the following day, though. Once home in Brussels the sun decided to come out. Like any other Northern European, our instinctive reaction to the sight of the slightest amount of sunshine was “BARBECUUUUUUUUUUUUE!”, so out came the charcoal, tongs and skewers. ‘Ploob lent a helping hand…

…and was rewarded with liquid sustenance.

Afterwards he felt a little light-headed and had to retire, and our daughter gave him pride of place on the shelf next to various other beloved playthings.

Next up: a boozy night out (do we see a pattern emerging here?) in Brussels centre…