We woke up after about 3 hours of uncomfortable sleep when the train station opened at 6am. On top of that, we still had no place to stay. We set out walking the streets of the city, and the ubelievable perfectness of Brugge's city center distracted us from our misfortunes. Everywhere you looked, there were canals, 16th century red-brick houses, and huge gothic churches. We eventually went to a hostel on the other side of town - still fully booked, but they allowed us to hang out in their bar and use their free wifi to find lodging arrangements elsewhere. We finally found a hotel on the edge of the city for about $45 a night per person - outside our range but we had no other options. Needless to say, we learned our lesson: always book ahead, especially on weekends. We took a tram to the hotel and were checked in by the incredibly kind and gracious lady who runs the place.
We had done an outrageous amount of walking by the end of the day (and the day before and the day before and... you get the idea). I used Google Earth to measure the distance we walked through the streets of Brugge and it came out to at least 7 miles for the day - most of it with backpacks. So obviously I took my run super-slow and easy. I left from our hotel, which was literally on the edge of the city (an old farmstead with cows and horses was just over a fence about 50 feet from our room) and I ran to a forest across the road.
Running on the muddy forest paths (it was sprinkling off and on) provided much relief from the stresses of the previous night and morning. There were trails splitting off in every direction, and taking random turns, I ran for about a mile without seeing signs of civilization. Suddenly, though, I came upon a paved path through the trees with a few bikers on it, and followed it a short distance before happening upon a castle - yes, a castle - seemingly randomly plopped in the middle of the forest. There were signs with the name of it, but I can't remember what it was. I'm guessing it was built by some eccentric rich guy in the 19th Century in the spirit of Romantism, which idealized the legends and architecture of the Middle Ages, fairy tale-ifying it.
On top of happening upon a castle mid-run, I also came across an ancient Bruggian ritual-like sport, where an exclusive club of drunk old men shoot arrows straight up in the air at a pole with bells or ribbons or something on it. It was hilariously bizarre.
All in all, a great run ending a very long and tiring day.
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| Church of Our Lady |
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| Weird shoot-an-arrow-straight-up-at-a-pole club thing |
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| Random castle in the woods |
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