Brugge ---at least the areas we were in--- seems all about the retail. In addition to chocolate shops there are general gourmet food stores, clothing stores, plenty of souvenir type stores and various chains like H&M and Zara.
Judy must have done this in about 12 different chocolate shop windows looking for the same kind of chocolate covered walnut we got on the train from Paris. No dice, though
UPDATE 2/21/09:
Finally got my videos up on YouTube so I can embed them in these posts. More evidence of Judy's relentless search for the special chocolate covered walnuts.
Zara has become a vacation staple with us. They seem to have a store everywhere we go. And while it's lost some of its appeal now that they have a location at Old Orchard, we still got caught in its magnetic field in Brugge. It almost couldn't be helped since it was only a couple hundred yards away from the hotel.
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A = hotel; B = Zara
We have dialed down the haul we take out of Zara nowadays since the novelty has worn off and, if I'm being honest, I just really can't pull off those shirts like cool Spanish guys can. But we were still able to pick up a couple of wine glasses and keep our tradition going of grabbing 2 glasses from every country we visit.
The rest of our shopping activity was right out of the bad tourist handbook. First, there were the miscellaneous kiosks around the Markt.
Most of them were selling exactly the same things, just like every other market in the world.
But that didn't stop me from picking up a sweet winter hat so I can finally show off my life long love for Club Brugge.
I also couldn't resist what seemed like the sock bargain of a lifetime. These were like 10 pairs of socks for 6 euros, or something like that. How could you lose?
As it turns out, the socks aren't great quality. At least not as socks. But I've since repurposed one of them as a sweater for my 3.8 pound dog. So 20 dog sweaters for 6 euros might be an even bigger bargain.
The other joint that sucked us in was this crazy chocolate place.
I was in here for like 15 minutes and as far as I can tell the only thing they sell is chocolate covered almonds. But they seem to be making a pretty good racket out of it.
What was impressive is that apparently to qualify for a clerk job at La Cure Gourmande in Brugge, you need to be able to speak 4 languages. As a Rosetta Stone wannabe, watching these people switch deftly between French, Spanish, English and Flemish was pretty amazing.
Finally, there was the "one that got away". Walking around another market during our last afternoon there I spied a stall selling Romanian wines. I circled the place like 5 times thinking 'how cool would it be to grab some Romanian wine from Belgium?'. And it would have been cool. But my rational side prevailed. It was cold, I didn't want to carry any more crap, and really, how good would that wine be once I got it home? Plus, maybe we'll just save that particular souvenir for some future trip to Romania. I hear it's just like Napa was in the 1960s ...
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