April 25, 2019 – Zeebrugge, Belgium
We arrived in port today at 7 am. This is a working port and because of that, guests must use a shuttle bus to get out of the port. Our plan is to go to the the city of Brugge, about 11 km away. There is a shuttle to the train station and it leaves at 8:30 am.
At 8:15 am we head out to the shuttle. We have rain gear on again today. I do have a different jacket and light waterproof ski paints also. It is cool enough where these feel great. The train out of Zeebrugge leaves at 8:54 am. Trains run every hour. We are on the very first shuttle. The driver waits longer than he should have and leaves 3 minutes late. We get to the train station and many others are running with us toward the ticket window. I take the short line. Big mistake. No one seems to be in a hurry but us. I finally grab our tickets and we run out the door. We watch as the train goes down the track. We missed it.
There wasn’t much to see in Zeebrugge. We did take a short walk and then decided to get on the next train and wait. The train was nice, quiet, and fast. Today we would do a walking tour of the sites, have lunch, and then catch the 2:54 pm train to Zeebrugge and catch the bus back to the ship. All aboard 4:30. Last bus 4:00.
There was another huge cruise ship in port with us today. We expected many tourists and there were bus loads.
We completed one walking tour and stopped in a store that carried antique prints. If you think we walked out empty handed, you would be wrong. We did buy a few etchings done of the city of Brugge. 21% VAT tax. We will get this refunded when we leave the EU.
Lunch was next and the menu was french! Croque monsieur is always my go to for lunch. Terri had something different for lunch. A salad!
After lunch we went to a patisserie and grabbed a baguette to take back to the ship. We started to do the tour of the different bars in Brugge but then decided to stop in Jerry’s cigar bar. I had a Cohiba and Terri had a scotch. We sat outside and enjoyed the atmosphere and it finally started to rain a bit. We packed up and started for the train station. We didn’t want to miss this train as the next one would arrive after the last bus left. We were on the platform with 5 minutes to spare.
No ticket was collected on either train ride. Not sure why.
Early to bed. Long day Friday in Amsterdam.…