His wife's originally from Greece but has been living in Belgium for quite some time now. She actually works in Brussels but commutes from Bruges everyday. I was quite surprised, given European attitudes towards distance whereas many Australians would think little of spending over an hour on the train just to get to work in the morning. We had a good laugh about their travels in Australia, a place they were quite fond of visiting but where they had severely misjudged travel distances many times, even in Tasmania which, even though it looks small on the map, is roughly twice the size of Holland.The next day was almost all work and no play trying to fit in laundry, paperwork and administrivia and some incidental sightseeing. We achieved about half of what we initially set out to do and just managed to squeeze in a brewery tour. There was an hour long wait so we killed time by watching tourists, trying to work out where they were from and what kind of package tour they'd signed up for. There were loads of 50 somethings, retirees and a few honeymooners. We couldn't decide if one group of sensibly shod older women were on some kind of feminist reunion tour or whether they were in fact lesbians.
There were a lot of horse drawn carriages going around, each of the drivers pointing out the exact same landmarks to their tired looking passengers as they rumbled past. I read somewhere that 1 million of these tours are given every year in Bruges and to avoid the streets being filled with manure the horses have a bag attached to them to catch their droppings. We dubbed them poo-slides as there was a long canvas section under the horse's rear end that lead down to a large pocket just in front of the drivers feet. They idea of taking one of those rides suddenly seemed a little less romantic.
The brewery tour at De Halve Maan was interesting and yet sometimes alarming to see the hazards workers were exposed to using the original equipment. Children would clean out fermentation tanks in complete darkness and were required to sing as they worked in case they lost consciousness and could then be pulled out by their ropes. Adults shoveling the roasting barley withstood extremely high temperatures and suffocating conditions. Fortunately it's all been modernised and most of the brewery is now a museum for tourists. Here you can see the view from the top.
The tour was delivered in both English and French at the same time and by the same guide so it was a bit of fun observing the differences between the two groups and their reactions. From what little French I could understand the guide was saying almost exactly the same things to both. The English speakers were mostly a mix of North Americans, Aussies and UK types and although the guide's first joke was a bit vulgar, we soon warmed up to him so that even his lamest remarks got some kind of acknowledgement. The Francophones seemed like hard work by comparison. They took a much more serious approach, nodding gravely as they absorbed the facts and if anything, looking slightly puzzled by the punchlines. I'm sure the guide was well used to it as he modified his tone and asked them more questions, perhaps to get at least some form of audience participation.The morning we cycled out of Bruges I was a rather taken aback by the swarms of tourists before I realised that it was now the weekend and numbers had swelled overnight in the tiny city. We managed to squeeze through on foot and mount up a few streets away from the centre but it wasn't long before P2's rear rack collapsed onto her back wheel. It seemed that the cobbled streets from the day before did more than give us an uncomfortable ride but that all the jolting and jittering had caused us to lose a few screws. Happily, a couple of spares later and a quick all over check saw us back on the road in no time, destination Ypres (or Ieper).
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