Thursday, June 19, 2008

In Brugges

I spent yesterday exploring the beautiful medieval town of Brugges.
This replica of a medieval crane was just down the canal from the hostel where I stayed. It's basically two human sized hamster wheels attached to a rope.

I also went to the diamond museum. Bling bling! I've always wanted to know how they cut and shape diamonds. The answer? With other diamonds.


This windmill was a few streets over from my hostel. I decided to climb the ladder, and it turns out there was actually a museum at the top, and for 1.5 euro I got to climb to the second floor and see the gears and brakes and grindstones while the whole thing was spining. As a mechanical engineer, I get pretty excited about this stuff.
Huge wooden gear with integrated drum brake. There were two of these, and two grind stones below.

Around lunch time I ended up in the famous Brugges farmers market which only happen on Wednesday so I got lucky again. I had an amazing Belgian waffle, and bought a box of the biggest raspberry's I've ever seen.

Typical canal in Brugges.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Love the canal shot

Anonymous said...

Wheels, gears, grind stones yada yada yada. I agree with sean. I'm in love with those old stone buildings on the canal! And wishing I was there...

Anonymous said...

yup, that canal shot tugs at the old heartstrings. Almost as nice as getting to see your well-tanned mug!

From time to time, make your mom happy and take/show pictures of flowers--flower pots, flower boxes, flower shops, etc. xox