Beautiful Belgium – Westmalle and Bruges

After escaping Brussels we arrived in Westmalle about 5pm to stay with Reece’s friends Chris and Maurice.  They are Belgian (or should I call them Flemish? Not sure…) but lived in Australia for a while and are good friends with Reece’s sister in Sydney.  They were very welcoming and it was great to sit down and relax.  We had tea, put some washing on and then went out to the “Cafe Trappisten” which is basically a beer cafe specialising in beer made by the Westmalle trappist monks.  There are only seven trappist brands of beer (brewed by monks) in the world, and six are from Belgium.We couldn’t all fit in one car and Reece wanted to drink, he’d managed to forget to add me as a driver for our rental car so I suggested he and Chris and I all walk (her suggestion originally) and Maurice take Reece’s parents.  Well I thought it was only going to be about a 20min walk but we just seemed to keep going and going! We got out of town and were walking on a single-lane road through a forest, I could hear dogs howling but there were lights ahead and I thought that must be the place, but no!  It was a camping ground and we carried on onto a walking track through the forest and Reece had to put on his headlamp.  Finally we made it and it was worth it!

The cafe was quite large, and they had proper waiters coming around to take orders for food and drink .  I had some kriek  (cherry beer) which I’m sure was nicer than than the stuff I’ve tried at the Belgian Beer Cafe in Christchurch – but this was a different brand, bottled rather than on tap and hasn’t traveled as far.  We spent the rest of the evening there, and Chris made two trips in their car so we didn’t have to walk home again.  Before we left she told our waiter that we were visiting from NZ and he went and got us free glasses and bottle openers – one set for each pair of use but I’ve done a deal with Jill so now Reece and I have a bottle opener each 🙂

Next day in the morning Reece and Chris and I cruised down to the local bakery on bikes to get bread and rolls for breakfast.  The bakery was amazing – not just bread, but stunning little tarts that were beautifully presented and chocolates too.  We passed another one on the way home that was the same, so it’s obviously fairly normal there.  After breafast we went for a day-trip to Bruges and had a look around in the old town – all these places seem to have an “old town” in the centre which has narrow, windy, cobblestone streets and cool old buildings.  I have to admit we were all as bad as each other at looking in the souvenir shops and didn’t really get too far at looking at the town!  However we climbed the tower which is the same one as in the movie, and had frites (fries)and mayonnaise and all enjoyed our day.

That night Maurice cooked mussels and more frites for us, these are typical Belgian food and I actually liked the mussels, which I was surprised about!  They are basically just steamed with onion and herbs and other vegetables and Chris got her mother to make special “mussel sauce” to go with them.  We had another good evening relaxing over a few drinks, I tried a raspberry beer but it was so sweet it didn’t even taste like alcohol, discovered why when we checked and it was only about 2.1%.

On our last day in Belgium we rushed around in the morning buying chocolate and beer and speculoos pasta (delicious sweet spread along the lines of nutella – I reckon it tastes like eating uncooked dough of ginger biscuits, it’s not pasta but “paste”) and went to the Westmalle monastery to buy cheese from the monks before heading off to the Delft factory and Amsterdam.

I was sorry to leave, Chris and Maurice were such good hosts and we had a wonderful time there.  It was the highlight of the trip for all of us so far and Bruce and Jill had a great time too.  Belgium is definitely on my list for next time!