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Most of today was spent racing from Colmar to Brugge -- our version of the Gumball Rally (I like to think I was part of Cobra Team).
In France, every cute little village was noted with a sign by the road featuring a lovely drawing of that town's gem -- a church or a castle or the town square. While we didn't actually see any of these cute little towns in person, we did get to see several excellent drawings of cute little towns zip by at 130 kmh.
We got to Brugge right around dinner time, with the rain suddenly starting to fall in thick, gloopy drops. Our hotel's in the old town and, as it happens, it's on one of those fifth dimensional side streets that you can only find by driving in reverse. After a few loops around Old Brugge in the rain playing my new favorite game ("Sidewalk or Road?") we came in for a safe landing and lugged our luggage upstairs.
A quick dash through the downpour took us to Brugge's spectacular market square and a great meal of mussels (a regional specialty) and shrimp croquettes here:
This building was named back in 1303.
After dinner, we didn't particularly mind getting soaked on the way home with views like these:
The belfort dates back to the 1200s and has 47 bells, which were a' chimin'.
A dry view of a wet town. (As an aside, my mom tells me that she went to dinner on this row years back. After they'd spent a while puzzling through where to eat, they learned that all these restaurants serve from the same kitchen.)
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the drive by cute drawings comment was priceless. as you know, US towns have the same, but different. our drawings depict known offenders, murderers, corporate thieves, etc. 5th graders get to meet the subjects before depicting them. we love art.