Wanderung 34

As our ship was not scheduled to dock at Seebrugge, the seaport for Brugge, until 10 o'clock, we felt we had time to squeeze in both the 7 o'clock stretching class up in the gym, and then get a quick breakfast before disembarking. We had decided to go over and see the old town section of Brugge because that part apparently dated back to the Hanseatic League era (that League included the German cities of Hamburg, Luebeck, Rostock and Bremen, and the Norwegian city of Bergen).

The stretching class was quite minimal, with none of the careful warm up before stretching which our instructor had so earnestly recommended during our first two sessions on the Zuiderdam. But still, the stretching was effective because Monika's hip did not hurt during all our walking for the rest of the day, and I even could squeeze in some of my back-strengthening exercises to try to avoid those problems.

We had a nice breakfast on the Lido deck, and were finally off the ship around 10:30. We were not allowed to walk out of the port area due to security issues, so perforce we had to take shuttle buses after disembarking from the ship. But there were two different shuttle bus options. We had been told that taxis were right outside the port gate, so Plan A was to take the small red shuttle bus that just went to the gate, and then get a taxi to Brugge. If there weren't enough taxis outside the gate, Plan B was to shuttle back to the ship and then take the big shuttle bus to the train station in Blankenberge, where we expected to also find taxis to Brugge. If there were still no taxis available, Plan C was to take the local train to Brugge.

But the scene onshore was chaotic, so we asked a distinguished-looking ship officer what he would recommend, and he said just take the shuttle to the train station in Blankenberge and then take the train to Brugge. So on his advice we changed to Plan C and boarded the big shuttle bus to the train station, about a 10 minute ride. Once there, we had to walk around barriers for construction zones and then wait in line for two rather harassed-looking ticket agents at the small counter, but we finally obtained round-trip, senior-rate tickets to Brugge for 5 Euro each, which I thought was a bargain. I was first at the counter, so I quickly bought tickets for all of us for 20 Euro and then we all rushed back around to Track 4 and managed to jump on board the 10:52 train to Brugge shortly before it left the station. Phew!

The train was a smooth, silent electric train with comfortable seats on a good rail bed, and fast enough that we arrived in Brugge a scant 12 minutes after leaving Blankenberge. There we joined the throng of folks milling around in the train station until I finally spotted a Tourist Information "I" sign and went inside to get a map. The map has two sides, one which was a bit more complete with street names, but the reverse side had all the normal tourist sites marked with numbered red stars, and each numbered star was carefully explained over to one side. Yay!

So using that side of the map, I laid out a route into the Market in the center of the old town district that hit as many of the tourist sites as was feasible without going way out of our way. Getting into the old central district is not as simple as in modern cities because not only are the streets narrow and crooked, but also the town has a circular river called "Ringvaart" (circular Canal or River?) around it that was probably connected to defensive walls back in medieval times because I saw gates out at the sides. But the Ringvaart is now part and parcel of the Belgium canal system that evidently connects to the canals in Holland. The old inner-city setup reminded me of the circular River in Luebeck, Germany that also surrounds the old central city and also has fortified gates at the major crossing points.

But the Ringvaart is only crossed by bridges at certain places, making access to the old town area rather limited. Fortunately, one such crossing bridge was located just outside the front of the train station and we headed off across the river and then along it for a short bit to get to our first attraction, Minnewater or the "Lake of Love"! That turned out to be an old rectangular basin used to moor the freight barges traveling from Ghent to Brugge. It's now part of a nice little park area and scenic for sure, but calling it a "Lake of Love" seemed to be stretching it a bit. Maybe I'm just getting too old and crotchety to see the romance in an old freight barge terminus.

Be that as it may, from there we headed directly into the old town area, detouring briefly into the "Begijhof", which appeared to be a religious retreat of some kind as silence was required while we were inside. The inside courtyard was in fact quite pretty and remarkably relaxing, and we also peeked into the small church on the canal side of the courtyard, which was clearly in use. Linda heard a tour guide state that the inhabitants were some independent order of nuns that had been forced to convert to Catholicism when that became the state religion of Belgium, but apparently were still living there.

We continued northward along a pedestrianized street, the Walplein, which was just jam packed with people, bicycles, and many horse-drawn carriages! Part of the problem is that the foreigners were largely unaware of the dedicated bicycle lanes and wandered into them, forcing the frustrated bicyclists to ring their bells wildly and veer unpredictably onto the pedestrian ways. The horse drawn carriages were charging through all the chaos without pause as their income depended on how many circuits they could make with a carriage full of tourists in a day. Linda said the horses were smart and would never intentionally run into anybody, but the pedestrians and bicycles were moving so unpredictably that the horses must have gotten confused at times--I know I was! Amazing that there are no accidents in that traffic maelstrom.

We paused for snacks and drinks along the way to the Church of Our Lady, which was quite pretty and reportedly had a Madonna and Child sculpture created by Michelangelo. Viewing some of the church was free, but the Michelangelo sculpture was in a separate museum section which had an entry fee of 4 Euro. Jerry, Monika, and I sat outside and rested while Linda visited that section and took, I hope, some good pictures of that sculpture that she will share with me!

From there we walked along one of the canals a bit to the Belfry, where a big weeping willow tree or something like it was draped over a old brick wall that dropped straight down into the canal. It was reputedly the most photographed site in Brugge, but just like in Venice, Italy, the canals of Brugge give the opportunity for a lot of unique pictures by using the reflections on the water, sun, and so forth.

We continued along the pedestrian area to Burg Square, which turned out to be a large open square surrounded by majestic old buildings, including a city hall from the 14th Century. I THINK that was the building with very fancy stone carvings plus a lot of golden gilt coverings on some of the exterior trim, but I am not sure. In a way, this City Hall was like the Rathaus in Hamburg, except older and on a smaller scale.

The thing that really amused me about that building was the very lifelike sculptured heads that were projecting out of portholes midway up the side of the building. I like those heads because they were carefully painted to be quite realistic and they each really resembled some distinct men and women. I assume the men were kings, as one at least was wearing a crown, and if so, the women were probably queens, but any explanation of who they were and who was married to whom was nowhere to be found.

Taking Breidelstraat westward from the Burg for a short block, we arrived at the Markt or old marketplace. The old buildings with the row of awnings and cafes ensconced underneath was just as we had seen in the picture from Ian's presentation and just as pretty, but Monika and I were a bit disappointed because we saw no sign of an actual market where one could wander around and purchase flowers, craftwork and such like things. As we wandered around, however, Linda did find a nice chocolate store and bought some chocolates to take home, as Belgium is famous in part for its high-quality chocolate.

We were all getting a bit tired by this time, so we began our return walk back to the train station by taking Steenstraat back southwest to St Salvatorskirkhof, another really large old church, and then pausing once again around the corner for snacks and drinks. Monika and Jerry had Duwel beer, a local Belgian beer that they said was quite good.

That rest gave us enough energy for the final part of our walkabout, a pretty straight shot South along the Westmeers street to the train station. That street was almost deserted and was a pleasant change after hours of walking in a crowded, chaotic traffic pattern. I also enjoyed some of the local housing as the buildings were quite old but well maintained with flower boxes, painted shutters, and other nice flourishes that some folks do to their homes.

Once back at the train station, Linda paused to buy some more fancy chocolate, but we still caught the 3:52 train for the brief ride back to Blankenberge. There we were fortunate to immediately catch a shuttle bus back to the ship, so we could put our feet up and relax a bit in our cabins before heading up to the buffet for dinner.

After dinner, we watched the ship depart Seebrugge from the bow , at one point seeing 17 ships moored offshore apparently waiting to either load or unload fuel, cars, or freight of some kind. But then we returned below to the Billboard piano bar to hear Ian (the singer Ian rather than the port lecturer Ian) and Danny play and sing some of the top songs of the 60s-80s. Linda and Jerry still had some energy after that, but Monika and I just called it a day and returned to our cabin for the night.