It’s less than a week till Christmas and we’ve come to a point where places that used to be too far are now bearably reachable. It started with an unheard of trip to Calais a few weeks ago, followed by Antwerp, Oberhausen, and Valkenburg. It seemed like a trip to Bruges wasn’t too incredible and last Sunday proved it – there really is a huge gap between Christmas markets here in the Netherlands with those just across the border so crossing the 400+ kilometer distance to do these trips makes all the effort worth it. Bruges was enviably quaint and lively that Sunday – old-fashioned horse carriages over cobbled streets and church bells playing Christmas music tend to do that – and despite the occasionally maddening crowds it was nice to walk around from market to market and savor the Yuletide atmosphere.