Bruges - May 2024
Participants: Tam & Kev and a good few others!
Again it was just Tam and I getting off the ship in Zebruggee. There are several ways you can get to Bruges from the port and we chose a bus that left direct from the ship. I think it cost 20 Euro, but it was very easy and dropped you off at a large car park a short walk away from the town centre.
As you can see, the weather wasn't really playing ball today. We had several rain showers and one or two of them were quite heavy. Tam had downloaded a self guided walking tour of Bruges before we left so we had a good idea of what we wanted to see and where to go to make the most of our day.
As we'd not been before we decided to make the best of it and do as much as we could. We bought a ticket to climb the clock tower and there were no queues as it was still quite early. 9.35 am according to the clock above.
This rather impressive mechanism clicks into action every 15 minutes and rings the bells. There are 47 of them, so it's a musical affair when they all go off.
I thought it would be deafening when they went off, but it wasn't so bad actually.
The views from the top are very nice. I always think it gives you a different perspective of a place when you see it from on high.
Our next touristy thing to do was to jump on one of the many boat tours.
Our captain was a jovial fellow and kept us all entertained and informed.
This lady was leaning out the window and feeding the birds (moorhens?) nesting below.
Our next stop was to get a beer at the oldest bar in Bruges.
It's a really authentic place and a lot of the patrons appeared to be locals.
Hang on a minute .... how come her glass is 3 times the size of mine? A trick of the camera I hope.
For a brief period the sun came out and everything looked lovely. Tam had got an idea in her head that she wanted moules frites that many of the restaurants seemed to do. It's really not my favourite food, but I gave in and we sat by the water of the restaurant with the black umbrellas.
She was, as usual, right and the large bowl of mussels in a garlic sauce was lovely helped in no small part by a bottle of Chardonnay and sunny weather.
Another wander round and we found ourselves outside one of the many small breweries in Bruges. When I say 'found ourselves outside' I may be twisting the truth just a little. We made a beeline for it!
We
certainly enjoyed our beer, but just as we were finishing it
started to rain again. It was just about time to return to the
ship anyway, so we walked back to the bus and we're back to the
port in 30 minutes.
Tam and I agreed that Bruges is a great place to visit and we
would very much like to come back. As it turns out that will be
sooner than we thought, but more about that at a later date.