Belgium!

Even though we spent less than 48 hours in Belgium we saw a lot....

Our coach got picked up outside of our flat at 6 am on Friday morning and drove a few hours to the Chunnel. I was really confused about how we were going to drive to Belgium but it turns out that they have enormous train cars that buses and cars can fit in. So we drove onto the train and then the train took us over to France! It was pretty cool. I tried to take pictures but they didn't really look that impressive.

We spent the first day touring WWI sites.

When we got off the Chunnel we drove the rest of the way to Belgium and went to a small town called Ypres.  First stop was the WWI museum. Ypres along with many other places in Belgium were complete decimated during the war. I mean flattened. Want to read about some of the war history? Click Here!

The museum was beautifully put together. Interesting, informative, and indescribably upsetting. This museum shows both the large scale impact that the fighting had in Belgium, Ypres, and the individuals.  It's impossible to understand the magnitude of a war that terrible. Then again, I have trouble grasping the horror and tragedy of any war. But we as a group found this especially hard because of the lack of attention placed on WWI in most of our educations. We knew the basics of what lead to the war and how America got involved and the post war effects but only a few of us really knew much beyond that. We were all extremely depressed as we walked out of the museum to find our hotel and eat lunch.





We had a nice lunch full of beer and waffles ....sooo delicious! Then headed out for our bus tour of town. We had a tour guide this time who came on board with us and pointed things out as we went while explaining more of the war history. We stopped at a few cemeteries and one of the restored trenches. It was intense but really interesting. I'm really glad we did it and got to see all of the locations. It helped me start to understand what actually took place in Ypres during the war.

After the tour we had another yummy meal and then went to a WWI memorial ceremony that takes place every single day at 8 pm. 

Then a group of us wandered around Ypres and found a bar and went to get some drinks and hang out for a while. It was nice to get to spend time together as a group since we hadn't really done much of that before this trip. 

Day two- Bruges 

Market in Ypres

We woke up and wandered around the town market until our bus left for Bruges at 9:30am

Both Bruges and Ypres were the same size up until World War I. Bruges, unlike Ypres, was untouched in either war so it was neat to see original 14th century buildings. We climbed a big clock tower with 300+ steps with the smallest winding spiral staircase I've ever seen. It was scary going up but walking back down was kind of terrifying! I meant to take a picture but I was too afraid haha! 

After that we just ate chocolate and waffles until the bus picked us up at 3 to go back to London!

House in Bruges

This is the clock tower we climbed

view from the tower

wall of Belgian beers!

Chocolate Ducks!

Walking Map of Venice

Want to see where we went?  Megan made a map!!

Tomorrow we leave for Belgium at 5:45 am!

Full, Tired, and Happy

So I survived my very first European adventure!! 

I made it safely to Venice and back- full, tired, and happy.

We had such an amazing trip- spent the majority of our time walking and the rest of the days were filled with  eating and drinking espresso.

We arrived in Venice around 11 on Thursday night and immediately found a gelato place. The first of many this weekend! Delicious treats in hand we made our way to the hotel we were staying in that night- Hotel Airone. It was nice and clean and right on the Grand Canal which was perfect- what a beautiful view to wake up to in the morning!!

Day 1 

We woke up really early on Friday and walked over to San Marco Square 

- Thanks to Megan and her trusty map we walked all over Venice and always knew where we were. We didn't always where we were going...but we were never actually lost! It wasn't hard to find the major places, like San Marco's Square for example, because there were usually signs with arrows. Clearly Venice is mainly a tourist location- this became even more evident as the weekend went on. 

Allie and I outside of Doge's Palace 

Doge's Palace in San Marco Square 

We wandered around San Marco -

 It was pretty empty because, as it turns out, February is off season but it was still fun to walk around and take lots of pictures of course!  Then we just walked along the canals and spend the morning drinking espresso in coffee shops, eating gelato, and looking for places to eat lunch. We had some suggestions for places to go but we decided to see what we could find ourselves first. We ended up in little place where we got delicious pizza and of course a nice bottle of wine. 

After lunch we found the B&B we were staying in for the next two nights- Nice and clean.

 It was run by a really nice man and he had the most adorable little girl. 

After that we went to Accademia - which was incredible and then just wandered around taking pictures of the sunset until dinner!

Day 2 

The next day we got up early to go to Dodge's Palace. It was absolutely beautiful. 

We walked around the courtyard and then went inside to see all of the incredible rooms. There were incredible halls with gorgeous paintings and elaborate details. Then we got to see the Bridge of Sighs which is where all the prison rooms where. That was pretty scary and intense but also really cool. It was incredible to be in a building that was so old and had seen so much history.

After that we decided to walk over the Jewish Ghetto and eat lunch there. 

Unfortunately we forgot it was  Saturday and everything was closed. 

So we walked around and saw the synagog and the memorial plaques. 

It felt really intense and empty.

After that we found a place to have lunch and then continued to walk around

 for a few hours before going over to the Guggenheim! 

Then we went home and took a nice long nap and spent some quality time looking up restaurants to make sure our last dinner in Venice was amazing...and it really was!

Day 3 

Our last day in Venice we literally wandered the streets until we finally ended up at the bus station to take us back to the airpot.

Overall it was a great first trip- we ate so much food and had such a fantastic time! 

Next weekend we're driving to Belgium with our class- yes that's right driving. 

It is a 5 hour bud ride through the Chunnel - it will be some trip!