Medieval towers and hot chocolate

Our cute hotel in Bruges; The Dukes Palace. 

And you can’t go to Belgium without having a Belgium waffle.

The Belfry of Bruges! A medieval bell tower that has stood the test of time. It’s dated back to the 13th century and is protected as a world heritage site. We climbed up the366 stairs to the observation that was used to spot fires and other dangers. It was so fun to see the inter workings of the clock and its beautiful melodies that go off every 15 minutes. And to see the 47 bells! (I have a video at the Christmas market with the bells chiming in my previous post and a look at how the carillon looks when playing in this post)

The Christmas market from above.

The carillon drum. It’s massive! This one weighs 27 tons and dates back to 1680, although chiming bells has been heard across the city for over 500 years! Every 2 years they change the music. They come up and change the little pegs on the carillon to allow for new melodies and variations to be played.  I can’t begin to imagine all the work and preparation that must be! But I’m sure the city residents appreciate the change.

It was so hard to snap a picture of all the bells looking up! This is as good as I could get.

But the view! Gosh it’s such a pretty city.

After the bell tower we got caught in the rain so we decided to warm up with some famous Belgium hot chocolate, and can I say it was the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my entire life! We bought some bags of their hot chocolate to bring home for the kids to put in their stockings and I wish we got more. It is so dang good! I will happily go back to Belgium just for the chocolate.