Today we stopped in Zeebrugge, Belgium. There were partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies when the sun came up this morning as we were heading into the port. Our port time today starts at 9:00 AM, a little later than yesterday, so we did not get up until about 7:30 AM.
As the ship headed into the port and then headed for the pier, we discovered that we were parking in a different location from the last time we visited here in 2016. We had issues making our local transportation connections that time, and had hoped to correct our errors on this trip. However, we were apparently going to the dock we had thought we were supposed to go to last year. Long story short, we now had to go through another learning curve on getting out of the port and to our destination, Bruges.
Today is Good Friday, so we can not eat any meat, which ruled out breakfast sandwiches in the room today. We substituted a yogurt parfait with granola for the sandwiches, and we were sure it was also healthier.
Our original plan for the port stop was to head to Ghent instead of Bruges, but the weather was not looking that good, and Stephanie had found a site she wanted to see in Bruges that we had missed last time. In reality, we had watched the port guide show for this port, and had learned about it there. The sight was the Basilica of the Holy Blood, and they were having a veneration of the Relic of the Precious Blood, believed to have been brought to Bruges after the Crusades in 1256. It is believed to be one of several relics of the Passion of Jesus. We will attach a PDF File to the blog with additional explanation and history
We were just about ready to leave the cabin when they made the announcement that we could leave the ship. We headed to Deck 7 to go through the security, and found that there was already a line of passengers waiting to get off ahead of us. We had planned on trying to board the first free shuttle bus so that we could then take a tram to Landenberg, and then catch the train from there to Bruges. We did know that with the tight schedule, we needed to be on the first free shuttle out of the port. However, we were about two minutes short of arriving in time to disembark to make it onto the first shuttle. We were stopped for bus traffic as we were nearing the bottom of the ramp to get off of the ship and onto the pier to walk to the shuttle bus. By the time we were allowed to proceed, the fist shuttle was gone, and there is only one bus making the loop, so it would not back anytime soon.
We changed our plan to go ahead and take the paid shuttle to Blankenberge, it was only a small cost more than taking the tram there, and it was direct However, we had to wait for the bus to fill up before it would leave, and we now knew we would not make the 9:42 AM train to Bruges, and would need to wait another hour for the next train at 10:42 AM. By the time we got to Blankenberge, it was only a few minutes after the 9:41 AM train had left, so we had to wait almost wait the full hour. This same thing happened last year, and we sort of figured it is just the way we need to plan, it just seems to take two hours to really go just a few miles, but is complicated by the slow and sporadic connections.
We went into the ticket office and bought two return train tickets for the train to Bruges for Euro 10.00, they were having a special for cruise passengers, so we saved about Euro 3.00 total. While we were waiting we met a nice couple from Simpsonville, SC. They were also heading to Bruges, so we talked with them until the train arrived, and sat with them on the train ride to Bruges.
City of Bruges
When we arrived at the Bruges train station, it was a crowded mess. There were people fighting to try and enter the small tourist information room to get a free map. By the time Stephanie got inside, the maps were gone. We tried to find one elsewhere in the station but could not. In the meantime, I needed to use the restroom, and we already had seen there was also a long line for that, and it required a payment of Euro 0.50. Luckily the men’s line was short, so I fought my way past the ladies line, paid my fee, and entered the men’s room, the urinals were barely blocked off from the vision of all of the unhappy women waiting outside for their side. It was not a relaxing experience, but at least I was through with that task for a little while.
We headed back to the information booth and found that it had been restocked with free maps, and there were hardly any people inside. I guess we had just caught them at a time just after a full train had emptied on our previous attempt.
Entrance To The Basilica of the Holy Blood
With map in hand, we headed off to the City Center of Bruges, about a 15 minute walk from the train station. This was where we really saw how crowded it was going to be here today. There were people everywhere.
We headed to the Basilica of the Holy Blood first, anticipating there might be long lines. We headed inside, thinking that the veneration time was about to end from some schedules we had seen online.
The Relic of the Precious Blood
However, we discovered that that the relic was on exposition all day today since it was Good Friday, not the limited times we saw on the posted schedule for normal weekdays and weekends. There was just a short line inside and in about fifteen minutes, we headed up the steps to view the vial containing the relic. It was a special thing for us to be able to do on Good Friday.
Inside The Basilica of the Holy Blood
Afterward, we just spent time wandering around Bruges, looking at some of the chocolates in the many chocolate shops, and taking a few pictures. We thought it had been crowded in Bruges last year when we visited, but this time, it was overwhelming. It was hard just to walk on the narrow, cobbled sidewalks because of the crowds.
We did go to one church that we had not visited last time we were here, but found it was no longer being used as a church, it had been converted into a concert hall, and was not open for touring.
Chocolates in Bruges
We were getting hungry, so we started to look for somewhere we could get something to eat without any meat in it, like a cheese only sandwich. We were unable to locate anything that looked good so we contemplated just heading back to Blankenberge.
First, we needed to find a restroom, which is very difficult to do in Bruges. We had not seen any public restrooms so far today in our waking. We were near the main Concert Hall, which was also near an information desk. There was a WC symbol on the map, but we could not find it, so Stephanie went inside and asked at the information desk. The WC was located in the underground parking garage, which was under the open park area we had just walked through. We had seen the small entrance to go to the underground parking lot, but had missed the signage indicating there were restrooms there. The entire above ground area was under renovation, and had been difficult to walk through with all of the construction barriers.
Crowds in Bruges
We headed down one level and found a restroom that cost Euro 0.40 per person to use. We each took our turn, paying the attendant prior to entering. The restrooms were very clean, so it was worth the small fee.
We were fairly close to being back at the Bruges Train Station, so we headed that way to get on the next train back to Blankenberge. We arrived at the Bruges station about fifteen minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, and headed out to our platform.
Bruges Train Station
The train was already there, but some of the signage led us to wonder if this was the train we needed, there were two different departure times listed, and the platform was split into an “A” end and a “B” end, as in 14a and 14b. We got on the train and waited to depart. At one point, we thought the train was leaving before the scheduled time, all of the doors were closing, indicating the train was preparing to leave. Again, we thought that maybe this was not the train we needed because of that, and started to head for the door to open it and get off. All that had happened was that the doors had all automatically closed to keep in the heat, and there were still people boarding, but they had to manually push a button open the doors to get aboard. We saw several people that had Princess Cruises bags, so this made us feel more at ease that this was indeed our train.
Sunny Skies At The Beach in Blankenberge
The train departed on schedule for the fifteen minute ride back to Blankenberge. About halfway there, the skies cleared and it was very sunny, a stark contrast to the very cloudy skies in Bruges. Blankenberge is right on the coast, so apparently the sea breeze had helped clear the skies there.
Once we arrived in Blankenberge, we decided to walk down the main pedestrian only street to the beach. It was only a few blocks, and we had never seen the coast here. It was very sunny now, but there still was a cool breeze. The main street was lined with shops of all types, and quite crowded with shoppers. It was a nice walk to the beach, and we stopped in a few shops along the way. We had to walk up about two flights of steps to an elevated walkway that ran parallel to the beach, sort of like a boardwalk, but made of concrete. All of the beachfront hotels, condo’s and restaurants were located right off of the walkway.
Every Beach Has a Tourist Store or Two
We took some other steps back down to the beach level, and walked out on the sand. There were quite a few people walking out on the beach, even with the cooler weather. The beach was really large, and it was quite a distance out to the water since it was low tide, and the amount of change between low tide and high tide here is about 10 feet in elevation. We took some photos, and headed back to the main street. We had seen a church off one of the side streets, so we went over to see it. The Church was the Saint-Rochus Catholic Church. It was open, but it was not very ornate inside, so we just glanced in and left.
Saint-Rochus Catholic Church in Blankenberge
We headed back to the Blankenberge train station, and were looking for a grocery store we thought we had visited the last time we were here. It was not where we had thought it was, so we walked a couple of blocks looking for it before coming to the conclusion that it was a stop we had made on another trip and in another town, not here in Blankenberge. We were getting tired, and sore from all of the walking, so we headed back to the area where the shuttle bus from the ship had dropped us off earlier this morning. There were several buses waiting there, and one was already about half full. We boarded and waited for our driver to leave.
They had informed us this morning that the buses would run every 15 minutes, but it was apparent they were going to wait for this one to be full before we left. The driver seemed to be waiting on the next train to arrive from Bruges since we were right across from the station. Eventually, the train must have arrived because several ship passengers arrived at the bus, and it was finally full. It made no sense to me, nor to many of the other’s who had waited with us, some were on the bus waiting for over 30 minutes. Since the trains only run every hour, and there were at least four other empty buses waiting, there was no way the next bus would be full without waiting for the next train, and would have to leave partially full. We had not needed to wait as long as we did, and there were several unhappy passengers, including us.
One Slice of Cheese Pizza For Lunch
We made it back to the ship, and boarded at about 3:30 PM. We still had not found anything to eat for lunch, so we headed to the buffet to look for something that met our no meat requirements. Most of the normal lunch serving lines were already shut down, and there were not any sandwiches available without meat, at least none that looked good. We decided it was going to be cheese pizza from the pizza station out by the pool, and that was our small lunch.
After eating lunch we thought it would be a good idea to do one more load of laundry since the ship seemed to be fairly empty. We headed back to the cabin and got our laundry and soaps, and headed to the Laundromat. Of course, since it was Good Friday, we did not have the adult beverages like last time in the laundry. Hardly any of the machines were in use, so it was easy to get a washer. During the wash cycle we sat in the Vines Bar and read and worked on photos from yesterday. We had the same luck with dryer availability and were glad we had made the decision to do laundry today while the ship was mostly empty of passengers. That will be the last time we need to do our own laundry on the ship, we have one more load of clothes in the ship’s laundry that we are waiting on, and that will give us enough clean clothes to make it through the remainder of the cruise, and our time afterward in Berlin.
We had seen a few good items on the Dining Room menu, there were a couple of good seafood items, Orange Roughy and Diver Scallops. We had gone through the buffet to see what they were serving while the dryer was going through its cycle, and had not seen anything good for us to eat for Good Friday, so we opted to go to the Dining Room for the first time on this cruise. We asked for a table near a window, but were seated a couple of tables away, but still had a good view. The ship was scheduled to leave while we would still be eating in the dining room, and since it was still light outside, we wanted to see the sail away. The best part of our seating location was that we were next to a wall that was the entrance to the kitchen, and we were very isolated from any of the normal dining room noise from the serving stations.
Our Friends From Berlin, Dagmar & Gerd, and Zivka, Our Bartender
In fact, our servers did not have a serving station, they got their food from the kitchen and brought it directly to the table. It was a nice dining room experience, other than the time it required. The food was good, Stephanie had the Orange Roughy and I had the scallops. We also had a great view of the ship leaving port.
After dinner, we headed to the Wheelhouse Bar to visit and had one drink. We did not stay out long because we knew we needed to get up early tomorrow for Rotterdam and our trip into Amsterdam. We were back in the cabin about 10:30 PM, and packed our gear for tomorrow’s trip before retiring for the night.