Bruge, Dunkirk

April 7, 2019

We woke up in Muiden, our last morning in Muiden. It has. been a nice stay there. I feel sad for Kim and Ilene as they used a bathroom on floor one but slept on floor 6. 38 stairs each trip down and 38 trips up. They got their exercise in each time they had to pee. So sad...but kind of funny. We did offer our humble bathroom. But...wait until you see tomorrow’s blog and the our bathroom tonight!

We got up and made our own breakfast. I honestly thought we would never figure out the stove top. I tried everything....and finally I figured it out. We again had scrambled eggs with old bread and Mango juice. The juice was really good. I also added cheese and salami to my breakfast. Kind of fun. One thing funny was that the Wayment’s were supposed to feed a rabbit. But the darn thing escaped before we arrived in Muiden. But while we were there, the bunny reappeared and the neighbor grabbed it. So the Wayment’s were on the hook to keep it fed for a night. The bunny did not starve and survived. On a sad note, Ilene somehow left her Kindle there. So for taking care of the bunny, the hosts are going to mail the lost Kindle to the USA for her. How nice of them.

Our goal for today was to get to Bruges and possibly Dunkirk. We made a couple of stops to get gas and get things out of our car before parking our car in Bruges. We found a parking place for 3.50 euros a day fairly close to the Church of the Lady and the Bruge square. The Church of the Lady contains the famous Madonna statue. But upon inquiring about it, they said it was not available to be seen but a replica was there. Anyway, we paid the 2 euros to go into the museum and as it turns out, we could still see the original Madonna fairly close. And we had no lines to deal with. It was perfect. Now the real important part, we hit a Waffle shop quite quickly followed by multiple stops at chocolate shops. It was really good...all of it. We eventually ended up in the medieval square of churches and buildings. It was pretty impressive. Really neat town. And the food was yummy.

We decided to leave around 3 PM and head to France.....Dunkirk. As we approached the coast, it became quite cool. We drove through Dunkirk right to the beach and the boardwalk there. I found parking real close. But after my Scotland experience, I felt like it was too good to be true. So I was a cat on a hot tin roof about how long to stay there. It was cold and windy...but it was good to see the ocean and vision the men being attacked here trying to get on boats to get across the channel back to England. It is hard to believe that we were only 15 or so miles from England....and easy drive if you could go on water.

After leaving Dunkirk, we challenged Ilene to find us a good place to eat on our route to our AIRBNB outside of Gent. Things pop up on the GPS in Flemish or French...and you have no idea what they are. She chose a place that had many eateries opened. It was not far off the highway the town and MAN...what a cool town! We really stumbled into a great place to eat, watch people and see some really older looking buildings. I bet all these towns have such. This town was in Belgium. It was called Veurne. The food was good. Denise and Ilene had Carbonara. But Denise ordered a Hot Chocolate where they brought her hot steam milk, a bowl of milk chocolate and a mound of whipped cream. Let me tell you....so good. In the square in front of where we ate there was a car show of really cool cars. Pretty fun.

Our drive to our AIRBNB took us about an hour and off into the country. We are sleeping with cows and horses. And I’m not talking about the Wayment’s and Denise! :-) It is beautiful and the rooms really nice. I’ll take pictures tonight and share them tomorrow. We’re off to watch General Conference on our IPAD!

Well...we’re down to two nights and we’re back to England and then home. I am ready to come home...to relax. But this has been a great, great trip. Lots of fun.

Pictures...