Sunday May 17th Zeebrugge and Bruges

We arrived in the port of Zeebrugge at 8am and we were greeted by a line of windmills: they love their eco power on the continent!

We decided to use the ships shuttle bus to the town of Bruges, some 7 miles inland. Before the off there was time for a quick swim and what P and O call brunch. We thought this was a breakfast plus bits but it was breakfast minus bits: the leftovers!

There were three coach loads of us into Bruges and we picked unlucky 21. Our tour guides English but was not the best and she seemed a little disorganised!

Coaches are not allowed into Bruges so we were dropped of a short walk from the town and our guide showed us the way in. We now realised why we like to do our own thing as we went at the pace of the slowest which was SLOW!

Once in the town we were told where and when to meet and we wander off to explore Bruges with its cobbled streets and water ways. We decided not to have a boat trip: a licence to print money at 8 Euros for a 30 minute trip. We also passed on a horse trap ride for 39 Euros.

Lots of chocolate shops where we bought some pressies to bring home unless we feel the need to eat them first as we have no room in our cases!

There were some fine old buildings like the Sint-Salvators-Kathedral

 

 

and the Gothic Town Hall in a lovely cobbled square called the Burg

Then back to the meeting point which was outside a line off coffee shops

with the obligatory bike park! Here we waited for ages for all our party to reassemble as an elderly couple misjudged how long it would take them to get back. So we walked at a snails pace back to the coach and somehow we managed to lose the elderly couple again. Then the wife turned up without the husband so she wandered off to look for him and the guide went after her. Then the husband turned up by taxi. Half an hour later we finally left!

So back to the ship just in time, and off for a day at sea before our next port of Warnemunde on Tuesday