Quaint, Historic, Elegant, Decadent Bruges

Our first dinner in Bruges was at Brasserie Mozarthuys.

We sat next to two ladies from England. We got to talking to them and discovered the lady in her 80s remembered World War 2 and getting sent out of London by herself at the age of 7 to avoid the bombings. Fascinating hearing her perspective. She later married a soldier from Belgium who was in London working as an interpreter for the Americans.

The woman and her daughter come to Bruges regularly to visit with her deceased husband's family. We enjoyed talking with them and they were interested to hear our story of living in London as Americans and how Chris's dad was stationed in England during the war. Turns out the ladies were staying in our same hotel so we saw them a few more times.

View from our hotel window

In the morning we could hear the clip clop of horses outside our hotel window giving carriage rides on the cobblestones. Add to that the musical tolling of bells from the Belfry tower nearby. To complete the picture a long line of swans flowed gracefully past in the canal. The word quaint barely begins to describe it.

 Our Hotel de Tuilerieen

Our hotel windows open up like french doors and only a bar protects you from falling out. You can sit in the window seat and people walking by smile up at  you. 

Don't fall out!

This is the hotel where cast members from the 2008 movie In Bruges stayed: Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes.

Movie Star photos in hotel bar

The breakfast buffet is in an elegant room with an impressive chandelier. Included in the options were crepes of course, but also fruit dipped in a chocolate fountain. Decadent!

Breakfast Room

The breakfast attendant goes through a litany of Bon jour, hello,... until she finds the right language to communicate with us. It's so impressive how many languages people speak here.

Just look at this Warm Drinks menu to get an idea of the international flavor...