A relocation day for us today. It was raining a little in the early morning but no where near as bad as it’s been on other days. We had ordered a taxi to pick us up at 10am, and we still had plenty of time, so off we went to get coffee from the great little place next door.
Savouring the coffee i’d noticed a few bikes go past with blue front tyres. I’d seen a lot of those around and thought it must be some Dutch trend or something so decided to google it. Turns out it’s a bike subscription service kind of like Netflix, you pay up to €20 a month and you get a bike, and the company deals with all maintenance, replaces it if it gets stolen etc. would be great if you were in the Netherlands for a few months.
Even though I’d asked the hotel to book the taxi, I had a strange feeling when he wrote the details down he had missed something, so double checked and sure enough it hadn’t been booked. The lady at the font desk just booked us another one, and I couldn’t quite believe it when the taxi showed up and it’s a Tesla Model X (for those that don’t know, this is a all electric SUV with gull wing doors). These are super expensive cars, but since they are all electric the Dutch government has some sort of subsidy to promote zero emission, so they are reasonably common as Taxis in the Netherlands
Train was on time, but since this train goes from Amsterdam all the way to Brussels and meets up with the Eurostar so it’s popular and quite crowded. Luckily we got on early and managed to find room for all our luggage. We are following the “how to get to Bruges” guide from seat61.com and he recommend changing trains at Antwerp rather than Brussels since the next train we are to get is direct. He is correct, Antwerp is a way easier station to navigate and hardly anyone else got off which made it easier.
Slight panic as we left a travel pillow on the train, So I jumped back on the train to grab it. For a moment I thought I might be stuck on the train and be hurtling towards Brussels with rest of the family stranded in Antwerp, but I made it off in time.
Apparently the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world after the USA. On the train you go past kilometres and kilometres of greenhouses, they are everywhere
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We got into Bruges and just jumped in a taxi to our Airbnb. It’s just on the edge of the old town and has a supermarket etc very close by. The Airbnb owner showed us the place and gave us a few tips for the area.
After stocking up on some supplies we headed into the centre of the old town for a look around and grab some dinner. Our AirBnB host recommend a place with great ribs, so we thought we would try that
As we walked out of the restaurant, it had started to rain, not sure where the clouds rolled in from since we had blue sky (for once) when we walked out but raining it was. We just jumped in the first taxi we saw and headed back to the apartment.
It's all about the coffee 