This year one of our now award winning tours took in the delights of 2 of my favourite Belgian cities, Bruges and Ghent.
Using Belle coaches and our calm driver Mark (he seems to be able to manage with my, ‘its down this road somewhere’) We travelled to our hotel in Ghent and the first stop before our happy travellers split was the hotel bar.
Most of our travellers had not been to Ghent and the following morning I was delighted to hear the chatter about all the great bars and food they had found, not to mention the people.
This was only a short weekend tour that in compassed the Bruges Beer Festival, but I think from the pictures you can see the great time everyone had. People then headed into the centre of Bruges and a lot of us ended up at the Red Rose Cafe. This great bar is just off the main square, it has a range of beers to die for at a sensible price.
On return to Ghent we aimed for the Jenever bar T’Dreupelkot. This bar has 250 different types of Dutch & Belgian Gins (just to give our bodies a break from the beer). As we had done a pre tour the month before (wait for the Deliria Blog) Mark & I took those looking for a late night beer to the Backdoor bar. This bar has 4 great things going for it, its a locals bar, one of the best music choices in the area, some great local beers and it is only 10mins from our hotel. The only thing missing is a cat! but I had my cat fix at Het Waterhuis.
As this was such a short tour, the next day it was time to head home via the fantastic De Dolle Brouwers in Esen. The tap for this brewery is only open on Sundays at 2pm and it has now become a regular stop when heading back to the UK on a Sunday. Picture a roaring fire, views of the country side, some great art and an Imperial Stout to die for.