Day 6 - 17 August - Zeebrugge & Bruges - day 2 of the cruise

We had to set the clocks forward an hour last night, and between that and not getting a good night's sleep anyway (I've got a cough I just can't shake!) it was lucky that we got up on time today. However, we made it.

Zeebrugge is the port for Bruge, but it's quite a way out of town. There's only one train per hour on Sundays, and we're only here for a short time - docked at 7am and leaving at 3pm.  So, really, using public transport isn't a really good idea.  There are lots of taxis, but many of them were prebooked - quite a few of those pre-bookings were by people on our Roll Call looking to share, but I couldn't be bothered to try to do the amount of research I'd need to in order to understand what I was seeing.  So, we did a ship's excursion in the hope that they'd just toss information at me, as usual on such tours  :-) 

The tour wasn't too bad, but certainly not the best one I've been on.  The guides didn't really explain an awful lot - they pointed out lots of places but didn't always explain a lot about their history but for some things we got the same story twice - once from the tour guide and then again from the canal boat driver.

The city definitely has history.  For an example of the age - there is a belfry tower which has three distinctly different building styles and bricks as you look further up the tower - that's because the first part was built in the 12th century, the next part in the 13th and the next part in the 14th.

We were taken for a walk, and then went on a canal boat ride, then went for another walk before getting free time to do shopping or our own exploration.  

We explored a Belgian Waffle with Butterscotch Sauce and Whipped Cream - excellent!

The city was almost empty when we arrived, but by the time we left you seriously couldn't move; it was just jam-packed with tourists.

Anyway, Paul took some nice photos:

It's a city of many canals - the canal boats here are similar to the ones we went on.  It is a good way to see parts of the city.

A building in the old Flemish style, seen from the Canal boat.

Back in 2002, Bruges got a government grant to help clean up their old buildings - they left this patch on a wall to show what a huge effect the clean-up had.

Each guild of workmen had it's own building - this is the Tannery Guild building.  The carvings above the windows show the various stages in the job of tanning.  The carving above the door though is a little more recent, when it has just become a house, and it identifies the house - they didn't have street numbers so houses were identified by a description or a carving.  The building is now a hotel.

Back onboard - it's formal night tonight.  I'm writing this at 5:22pm and I have to decide really soon now whether or not I feel up to getting dressed up tonight since we're booked into the Early Dinner seating at 6pm.  

Later again - we made the effort, dinner was pretty good. The people on this cruise at least seem to take 'formal night' a bit more seriously than on other cruises, particularly for the men.  Paul was wearing a suit and tie, and he wasn't the only one, but most men were more formal and wearing tuxedos.  The women though were dressed pretty much as they are for formal night on almost every other cruise I've been on - a few in formal gowns but most (including me) wearing a dodgy combination of a dressy / glittery top and a long / flowing skirt or pair of trousers.  Totally under-dressed compared to the tuxedos but there's a clear understanding amongst the vast majority of women on cruises that we'll pretend that this sort of outfit is actually "formal" and I'm certainly not going to argue the point  :-)  

Since we have a set dining time, we also have the same table each night.  A younger couple joined us the first night but they seemed quite uncomfortable and apparently changed their dining option since we've now been joined by another couple.  So, there are now three married couples at our table (Julie and Richard who are English and Irene and Jack who are Irish, plus of course Paul and I), all much the same age - plus an older English gentleman (Percy) who is accompanied by his grandson James.  James is a student in his early 20s and the combination of his fairly posh English accent and fashionably cut red hair has already had one American assuming he's Prince Harry!  Seriously!  James has signed up for the all Premium Alcoholic Drinks package and is doing his best to get the benefit of it, but not in any sort of obnoxious way; he's quite a nice kid actually.