Gasbarro Family: Day 5 - Ghent and Bruges

Our 5th day in Belgium was my favorite. We went to two of the more interesting towns I have ever been to; Bruges and Ghent. If I were to make travel recommendations I would highly recommend a few leisure days in these towns. Time has almost stopped in this area of the world. Yes, there are crowds and in Ghent there was a ton of road construction, but you didn't find McDonald's or much in the way of Western Civilization. Unfortunately, we only allotted for one day in these two locations, but sometime in the future Grant and I will be returning to Belgium just to stroll these streets.
These are just a small sampling of the pictures that we took and in a lot of cases they aren't the best ones either. I've put other ones on facebook and I'll eventually add a link to the site to see the pictures in their entirety.

Bruges-the Venice of the north

Adelaide, Queen of the Canal

Surprise, there is Grant buying more waffles from a street vendor. If I'm not mistaken he blew half of the powdered sugar onto me afterwards.

You couldn't turn a corner without running into a lace shop. You could buy anything made out of lace and let me be the first to say that it may be everywhere, but it was still expensive.
I had no idea how handmade lace was made until we were in Belgium, but this country was once THE place to go in order to purchase lace and fabrics.

What do you think...strong resemblance to a Pappy Adam moment? I'm pretty sure we asked him who was on first when he woke up.

A little Tootie and we will call it Daddy juice today. I reserve the term Mommy juice for wine.

When we first entered Bruges we had to be silent because we were walking through a monastery.

Ghent

This is Michelangelo's Madonna, we were so close you could jump and touch it.

Have I mentioned that there were bikes everywhere?

Fabric was the beginning and almost the end of Ghent and Bruges. At one time people flooded this area of the country for the fabric and lace. Many years later, other areas of the world discovered how to make similar quality for a much smaller price, when this happened Bruges and Ghent almost went dormant. Now they rely on people like us to visit, eat, drink and shop.