Ghent, Bruges and Brussels

It was my idea to go to Belgium. The main reason is it's so close. Two hours away from London with Eurail. We left on Thursday morning and got there around noon or so. It wasn't hard navigating the metro system. The most challenging this was just buying a train ticket since we can't use the machine since it only took coins. The hotel was really close to a Metro station. After a quick check-in, we walked around in the Christmas market. I did some research on where to eat. There was a local seafood place that was quite popular. Their specialty was fish soup, so that's what I got. It was quite pricey for a lot of tomato broth, chopped vegs and very little fish.

 This is the town square called Grand Place.

 We booked a beer tour a few days before we left London. Even though I don't really drink but I found this more interesting than a chocolate making tour. The tour had good reviews. One person said there was too much walking than drinking, which was perfect for us :) Belgian beer had really high alcohol content, 9-11%. The first bar that we walked to was dated from 1695. Really old bar. The guide explained how beer was processed. A third of the people in the tour were Americans. We had a few teachers that currently lived in Spain and France. One girl was from Missouri and she worked as a guide at the Bud plant. She pretty much could take over the guide, in case he drank too much on the job. Just kidding, he didn't drink at all. 

 Our choices at the first bar was blonde, amber or dark beer. I had a couple of sips.

This is where one of the draft beer was made. Organic brewery. No pesticide used in the building. They use a good ol' broom to clean the spider web and cats to eat the mice. Do you know it can take 3 years to make good draft beer? the taste for each batch can be different from another. Quality control is not a top priority in this business.

The next day we were off to Ghent and Bruges. We did a Viator day tour. Tons of Spanish were in town because this was a long weekend for them. Our tour guide spoke English and Spanish. He always alternated explaining everything in both languages, which was annoying after a while because it took twice longer. 

 Dark and cold in the morning but I can see the beauty of this picturesque town. 

 Just like in a fairy tale.

 What's in Belgium besides beer? lots of Belgian waffles and chocolate.

 Finally the sun decided to show up in Bruges.

 Can't miss visiting the Maneken Piss in Brussels.

 Another favorite comic character, Tintin. It's a mural in the city.

 Grand Place at night.

 Some crazy potato dish in the Christmas market. It's like gnocchi with cheese, white wine and stringy mushroom. 

 I didn't eat these but macaroons were in every bakery. They're expensive. One Euro for a small one. These are giant macaroons. Below is another bakery by the hotel. The smell was soooo good. One funny thing about the hotel. Our room was right besides the breakfast room. At 5 in the morning, we could smell warm bread baked in the oven. Even though Belgians eat all kinds of bad food and drink alcohol but I hardly see an overweight person. I think it's all about portion control at the end.

Stone Henge and Bath

After I bought the Cotswold tour from Groupon, I browsed other tour offered and found Stone Henge and Bath. Two birds one stone. This is a perfect day trip when Julie came to visit. I always want to know what so exciting about giant Menhir sitting in the middle of no where. I grew up reading European comics (the text was in Indonesian). Obelix and Asterix were my favorite. It's a French comic. Here's a picture of Obelix.

I pictured him building Stone Henge. Anyway, we met with the tour group at Victoria Coach Station. This is deja vu. I was just here a week prior. The start was always chaos as usual because there were some other tours leaving at the same time. This time we had a double decker bus. Lots of people in this tour. I hope we didn't have to wait around for people and everybody was on time. I took a half dose of Dramine to avoid any motion sickness. I dozed off right after we got out of London. I think the journey to Bath was around one hour or so.

From the highway or motorway, they call it here, we saw little mounts in the middle of the fields. Pretty soon we saw Stone Henge from a distance. It looked sunny and warm outside, but when we stepped off the bus, it was chilly. The wind was so strong. The sunshine really fooled me.

The wind really messed up any good hair. We were back in the bus 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Since I moved to Atlanta, I really couldn't stand cold. It was hard to think that I lived in Iowa for 11 years. Everybody got back to the bus on time. Off we went to Bath. Everybody that I talked to in the office said Bath was quite nice. Yes, indeed. This is the cutest town in England that I had to so far. Bath was super busy, lots of tourists in town. Partly because it was a weekend and also, it's almost Christmas, so they had a Christmas market. It was so packed. The coach took a while to get to the parking lot that was a little bit outside of the town center. In the mean time, I texted Lauren since she was just there a few weeks ago with her parents, where to eat lunch. She said Sally's buns. I googled it and we walked to the cafe. We weren't too surprised to see a long line outside of the restaurant. We decided it wasn't worth it to queue. There were some food stalls in the market. I had a burger with sauteed onion with ketchup and mustard. It was the best burger that I've had in a long time. I think it was just the combination of cold, hunger and good mustard. It was that good. 

 We ate our food while standing on the side of the street. The streets were so packed with people. The next destination is the Roman Bath House museum (above picture). I didn't know what to expect. It was actually a really good museum. Romans were so smart. They used the natural hot spring to build a spa.

 The water was still hot. It's a museum, you're not allowed to soak in the warm water in the middle of the chilly winter.

 A not very successful selfie.

 I love the reflection of the building.

 This is the river in the middle of the town. Cold water, not hot spring water.

 We went to the Crescent. It was just so beautiful. Honey colored classical facades are the trade mark of many England architecture.

We got back to London around 7PM. It was a long day but so worth it. The next day we went to Tower of London, a quick lunch at Borough market (the market wasn't open on Sunday, but there was a paella stall that opened)

 We ended the day with an afternoon tea. I ate way too much food. 

Cotswolds Region

This is the first UK tour I did. Jessica found a deal in Groupon for Cotswolds Tour including lunch. We took off at 8AM from Victoria Coach station. This area is where you see the real country side. Limestone houses, rolling country sides, beautiful gardens, sheep, green pastures, cute little stores, cream tea and many more. The tour started in Bibury, Burford built by the river, and Stratford upon Avon, the birth place of Shakespeare. I'm not going say much in this post. Browse through the pictures, close your eyes and imagine you are in England :)