Early this morning, we hopped on a bus to visit two other Belgian cities, Gent and Bruges. It was very cold here today, especially in the morning, so we spent a lot of time browsing the little shops in Gent. We ended our morning there with a glass of amazing hot chocolate from Chocolato.
Then it was onto Bruges, a fairy-tale like, medieval town a little over an hour from Brussels. Here, we walked around the narrow streets scouring for more chocolate samples - I highly recommend Chocolatier Dumon - and hanging around the main square, Markt. If you're here and looking for somewhere to eat, I highly recommend Mamma & Co. We both had great sandwiches here and they have free wifi too! Throughout the city, houses have been built right up to the canals, and everything is picture perfect. We also walked through the monastery here, where an art exhibition was taking place (see the pictures of the small homes in trees). According to our guide, the artist was attempting to interpret the relationships between nature and architecture. I thought it was rather interesting.
Once we were back in Brussels for the evening, we grabbed dinner at an AWESOME Thai-Viet restaurant, Yaki. Their chicken satay was some of the best I've had. After he was off work, Vincent met up with us and we went to grab drinks. It's really fun having a local friend who is willing to take you to places you would have never heard of otherwise. Vincent took us down an alley way, which opened up into a small courtyard with a bar. Here, we (mostly me) indulged in more cherry beer and talked about Vincent's travels to some of the cities we will be visiting on the next part of our trip.