Air conditioning is not prevalent here.  Though once the sun drops, it gets quite pleasant out, so we kept our window open.  Mind you, the sun drops rather late -- as I write this it's 10:40 in the evening, and it's twilight outside.  The sun is still shining brightly at 9:00 PM.  It's weird, but I love it.

Anyway, the downside to leaving the windows open at night is that they're open in the morning.  When you have an east facing room, this is important.  At 8AM, I awoke to the sun beating on my face.  There are worse things you can have beating on your face when you wake up, so I counted myself lucky and began the day.

After a nice breakfast in the restaurant downstairs, we hiked our way north into the city.  Brugge is a beautiful place -- very old city with narrow cobblestone streets.  In many ways, it reminded me of Vieux Québec, which is certainly backwards, but there's where I first visited.  We walked north through the city until we reached Markt Square.  From there, we engaged in a mini city walk -- I say 'mini' since it was abbreviated by what seemed like a large number of weddings going on at the church in Burg Square, and a lack of interest in the paintings in the museums here.  Still, it was a beautiful walk, and the scenery is simply delightful.

Upon reaching the canal, we took a 30 minute canal tour on a boat.  It was a nice way to both see the city from an angle one does not easily get, and to beat the heat since the breeze from the boat on the water was simply fantastic.  After the boat tour, we made our way through various streets and alleys to the south end of the city , whereupon we decided we were ready for lunch.

Remember this -- when having a meal in Europe, plan at least two hours.  It's a nice relaxed pace here, but it can seem slow if you're not expecting it.  By the time our lunch was done, it was 3:00, and we took the tour at Half Moon Brewery, the only local brewery in  Brugge.  They produce three beers -- a golden ale (6%), a dubbel that's darker (7.5%) and a tripel at 9%.  I tried both the golden and the dubbel, will try the tripel tomorrow.

The tour was neat -- we got to see the 'historic' brewery, no longer operational and everything beyond primary fermentation now happens offsite.  Still, we got to climb lots of stairs, see the view from the roof of the brewery, and taste some grains.

After the tour, we decided to make our way to Beertje, a pub that has been universally recommended -- they have over 300 beers.  At least, that's what I read.  I cannot confirm any of this, since we learned upon arrival at the pub that they are closed from late June to July 8 so the employees can go on holiday.  It seems an odd time to close, since I imagine it's a top tourist destination, and we are most definitely in tourist season here.

So, alas, no Beertje for me.  But since we'd already made our way to the north of the city again, we looked for another beer destination.  Next on my list of good beer pubs is De Garre, which was not too far, so we made our way there.  Finding the first floor full, we made our way upstairs, found a table, and in minutes were enjoying the house tripel.  We were also fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a lovely couple from Athens, GA at the adjacent table who were on the tail end of their European adventure, and celebrating their engagement (congrats Dustin & Kristin!)  Dustin's a beer guy, who works for Terrapin Brewery in Athens, a place whose beer I hope to sample some day soon.

We whiled away the hours talking about everything beer and Europe, and before I knew it, it was 7:30, I'd had many, many, fine beers, and we were thinking of supper.  So, we wandered east to a wonderful Pasta Restaurant (Pili Pili), where we enjoyed fine pasta, more beer, and some great desserts.

Eventually, realizing it was 10:00, we decided to make the long walk back south to our hotel.  And now, here I sit, watching the sky slowly dim as it approaches 11PM.  Off to sleep, and another Belgian adventure tomorrow!

Pictures here.