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Damme, Belgium

We got woken early by a loud uninvited noise which sounded like chainsaws. I looked out the window to see a garden maintenance team with leaf blowers and three motorised hedge cutters working on the hotel garden. Great, that added to my dissatisfaction. So well and truley woken up we headed down for our breakfast which was part of our package.

It was comprehensive but not wow, and the Belgium cheeses I tried were not to my taste – very different to other Dutch and French cheeses we have enjoyed. A couple of nice touches were mini hot black puddings like breakfast sausages and a table with champagne and big blocks of dark, milk, and white Belgium chocolate which you cut yourself hunks, I mean shavings off.

Fortified we set off to catch the bus to a canal stop just on the edge of town where we took a paddle wheel boat (diesel powered) to the town of Damme. The trip was about half an hour up a quiet green canal with lovely water Lilies and birds nesting amongst and on top of grasses. Along the banks were cycle trails and tall poplars, behind them was farmland with those jumbo steaks on legs and lots of horses. Houses were varied styles with nice manicured gardens.

One thing about Belgium which is not so endearing is its weather. Being near the English channel its often a bit windy, cool, wet, and changeable. Damme is in between Bruges and the sea and whilst it wasn’t too bad when we left the hotel, I was definitely under dressed to the point of too cold for the rest of the day in my 3/4 shorts, tshirt, medium overshirt, and scarf – never mind lesson learnt.

Damme is a very small town and meant to be scenic. I did not find it that interesting and the food was expensive and mediocre. It does have an interesting cathedral with older partial ruins attached dating around 1200. Outside it is a very interesting large statue of a three sided face but no English for me on a sign to work out its significance.

A surprising find was the towns claim to fame for the stories of ‘Till Eulenspiegel”. We saw a whole lot of books in the information centre that brought back childhood memories for me of a book my grandmother had. I did a bit of google research and whilst the tales originated in Germany around 1400 -1500’s, a local author in the 1800’s adjusted the story line a bit with relevant issues to Belgium (like Winnie the Pooh there was more meaning to the tales and they were not originally for children per see). From what I can gather the illustrations that are most known came from these versions, not 100% sure on that though.

Thought I may find herrings in Damme as they have a herring market noted but no luck on that due to the season so guess I have to satisfy my culinary urges with chocolate.

When we got back to Bruges we went to the ‘Historian’ which is a 30 minute 4D experience which takes you back to the golden age. You have an audio guide and walk through 7 rooms which are set up like a theatre stage – complete with props, wax life size figures etc. A high tech movie (sometimes with holographs etc) plays part of the story for about 4 minutes in each room. As you are standing in the set the narrator who is the key character speaks to you in the first person so you feel part of the scene whilst he leads you from room to room through corridors and stairways – all dark and Middle Ages themed.

The story was about the apprentice of the famous painter Jan Van Eyck, and included a bit of romance to spice up the history. It was kind of cheesy in parts but also very good in that walking through these sets with all the little FX you were drawn into the time and place. Worth a visit.

In order to check another thing off the list we got frittes from a dedicated frittes shop on the square. Photo attached, no comment needed except that they actually werent as good as we had in Amsterdam, close but not quite as irresistable (still managed to do damage to the serving though :-).

We went back to the hotel to warm and freshen up before dinner and dined at a very higly rated Greek restaurant which ended up very disappointing. I engaged my German side and told the waiter directly what I thought when he asked as he cleared the plates. I had prawns in a feta, tomato and wine sauce and for 23 euro got 5 king prawns in a horrible horrible sauce that tasted like a cinamon stick, and the prawns were over cooked big time. The poor waiter was mortified when I told him it was not nice and rushed out and returned with a complimentary dessert.

Shouldn’t have charged me for the meal IMO but this is one of those things where I don’t know the rules over here so you just put up with it and slam them on Trip Advisor. Also they don’t often come and ask you how your meal is going over here – just at the end which to me is poor service and a waste of time after the event. New Zealand and Australia are very professional in this respect and better chefs overall through the different budget ranges.

So we wandered back home at 10:30pm in strong daylight (bizzare) thinking that we have had some very good and some not so good hospitality experiences here. Thats the luck of it in a big city but I really wonder about some of the restaurant reviews on Trip Advisor – mostly its right, but boy some are a long way out.

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