Brugges on Tueday

The port for Brugges is Zeebrugge which is about an hour away.  When you get to Brugges the "depot" for the tour buses is quite a distance from the center of the city-- about 20-30 minute walk.  Nice walk, but far.

Brugges is a wonderful medieval city with a wonderful canal, very old architecture, etc. It's a UNESCO Heritage Site.  To be honest, would like to see it sometime!  So many people.  I just think dumping a couple thousand people into the city from a cruise ship just doesn't work although they try to control numbers with the walk from the buses, etc.

I don't think a thousand people ever lived here in its heyday.  Lines to get into church, on canal boat, etc. Streets jammed shoulder to shoulder.  Many, many gift shops all selling the same things - chocolates, lace primarily.  Everything opened in Brugges!  It was just too much for me.  Jack picked out a great restaurant -- that was empty by the way.  We shared Belgian waffle and asparagus soup.  Another couple from ship came in. Tasted their fries and mussels.  They were from Hudson, FL and have been on over 30 cruises and in Brugges 4 times.  Ugh, I just don't get that.  They of course recognized Jack because of scooter.  I swear we could have sold 100 of them while on this trip.  Everybody noticed it and thought it was a great idea.

JACK SEZ:  On the ship and in every place--including NYC--people came to ask about the scooter, cost, do you need license, etc.  Were surprised to learn how cheap.  The old Belgium block streets were hard to walk and very rough for me to ride.  Still, larger wheels were much better than usual little wheels on handicap scooter.  Streets jammed to point of discomfort.  Our tour merely transported from port and dumped for walking tour.  We could not do part of tour because it went across tiny bridge with STEPS.   I later observed that city buses were very well equipped for boarding with scooter.  My guess, we could have boarded local bus at terminal.  Enjoyed better and much faster tour.  But didn't see that until later and then problem was what to pay with.  Would have saved Kas a LOT of walking and crowd stress.  Still very interesting old town, could have been built by Disney.

We waited a very long  time for the bus to go back to the ship and then long ride back. Guide was all about Belgium's role in European Union, etc. We found it a very tiring day.