Christmas Markets in Bruge

We had a brief - but fantastic nights stay in Bruge - especially to visit the famous Christmas Markets.

To add that extra special Northern Hemisphere Christmas atmosphere, there is an ice rink in the middle of the square. There are beautiful fairy lights encrusting the trees, making them glisten and shine.

The markets are relatively small, with perhaps 50 stalls in all. Most of them are food stalls, each I suspect, pumps out its sweet or savoury smells to entice passerpbys. 

We indulged in hot chocolates and then a special marshmallow chocolate dome sweet; followed by the most enormous hot dog in history. 

We ogled the hand crafted toys and beautiful  Christmas ornaments, which were showcased with twinkling lights and mirrors. It truly felt like we were transported into a fairy land. 

We really splashed out ( ha ha not really) and bought two tiny wooden carved tree ornaments.

Perhaps it was a long way to come and drink hot chocolate and get a wooden tree ornament, but the experience will stay with us, and as I say to others - we don't have things like this in Australia.. so its important to grab the opportunity to se and experience them first hand when we can.

I've been to Bruges before and spent time wandering its tiny streets in the summertime. Its unique ancient medieval Flemish city where much of the architecture has been preserved with the streets traffic free making it very easy to explore on foot. Oh - and Bruges is also a chocolate lover's paradise! mmmmmmm..

It was also heartening to know that the "camino kids have still got it!"  Our room ( gorgeous by the way) was a little way from the city centre. Our host pointed us up the street and said "keep walking straight, you'l run into it".. we hadn't imagined that we needed to walk 4 kms.. but we did easily.  Though it was chilly, we had our fluffy coats and gloves and our normal silly banter kept us going. It was great to know we could walk 8 km in an afternoon and not really worry about it.