Port 88 Zeebrugge, Belgium

by Ed · June 7, 2022

Hyvää huomenta, Bonjour, Guten morgen! Oh, I’m so confused! Flemish! French! German! Oh, my! They speak all three – which language should I use here? It was English!

It was another cold drizzly morning as we glided in to Zeebrugge’s harbor!

A tug latched on to us again to assist in getting to the pier.

We are a long way from anything at this pier! I was entertained by the two gents pulling the lines up – they have a little truck to the right that has a winch on the back – as they used the winch to pull the thin handler line pulling two more mooring lines, the winch broke the handler line and everything started sliding back into the water! The guy in the picture struggled to grab the handler line before it all disappeared in the water, and together the two guys pulled up the mooring lines. Not everything goes as planned!

We’re on a tour today to see “Brugge – a Medieval Gem”! But it’s pouring rain again! The bus drops us off near this bridge, and we cross it to enter the heart of Brugge.

Be forewarned – I’m gonna show a lot of pictures of beautiful buildings and not talk a lot about them.

The canal provides us lovely views! How much more beautiful would this be with a blue sky and calm reflecting water? Yeah, lots! But this is still calming, serene as is.

Another lovely view – this one appears to be or have a restaurant on the waterfront!

While the tour guide was talking about a building in front of us, I much preferred this building behind us!

The chimney tops caught my eye on this building! They appear to be a bunch of circular pipe sections stacked on each other!

Joy sent me this picture. She likes the color! You can see I’m well masked!

I like this row of buildings behind the gate!

The activity of the swans caught my eye before I realized there is a cute bridge in the background. The swans started fighting over something, and the ducks scrambled to stay out of the way!

There are six little bungalows around this garden. These homes were built and maintained specifically for “six impoverished widows over the age of fifty”!

Walking through the shopping area we find this little store. This was a company Joy loved to shop when she lived in Germany in a previous life!

Inside it is filled with beautiful Christmas decorations of all kinds! She explains a lot of the decorations we have for our tree at home came from a Käthe Wuhlfahrt store!

We enter the Walplein – Wal Plaza – that is our meeting point after our free time. Cute! It is on Walstraat – Wal Street!

We continue through town, crossing another canal bridge for this sweet waterfront view. Swans were everywhere!

Have you seen the movie “The Monuments Men”? If not, please do! It is about a group of art experts thrown into World War II to find and protect major works of art from damage when the Allied forces would attack and from Hitler’s forces trying to steal them. One of the major pieces sought in the movie is a marble sculpture by Michaelangelo of the Madonna and Child. That sculpture was at this church, the Church of Our Lady Bruges. I’ll say no more in case you want to watch the movie! This church is now a museum.

This is the gorgeous, soaring belltower of the Church of Our Lady Bruges that we couldn’t see in the previous photo!

As we crossed the canal again we saw this tour boat! We are also supposed to take a canal ride as part of this tour. Spoiler alert – we skipped the canal boat tour and chose to have another half hour of walking and shopping. We would meet the group at the appointed time in the Walplein.

Here’s another canal bridge shot with the swans in line!

As we pop out of a street and prepare to cross the canal again the belltower of the Church of Our Lady Bruges makes an imposing appearance!

Then around the corner is another beautiful tower! We’ll see this up close soon – it is Belfort – the Belfry of Bruge.

This is supposed to be the Fish Market, but today it is an art market! I’m impressed that the artist was thoughful enough to bring his own light to the party! The art wouldn’t look the same under the gray sky light.

The turrets on this building captured my interest. The swans made this worth posting!

We arrive in Burg Plaza with a gorgeous popup of the Belfort in the background!

On our way from Burg Plaza to Grote Markt Plaza we pass the Biermuseum – the Museum of Beer! Apparently there is an interactive “Beer Experience” tour here! Steve, have you been here?

We arrive in Grote Markt Plaza, and are now in front of the Belfort! Stunning!

There is a staircase of 366 steps to climb to the bell carillon, €32 for access. I would have done it, but 1) we didn’t have the time, 2) the line was long (see 1!), and 3) I’m not sure how good the view would be with the rain.

Accompanying the Belfort in the Grote Markt Plaza is this line of fabulous buildings! The one in the center – the Provincial Hof – has apparently been undergoing restoration work for several years.

In the middle of the Plaza is this memorial to Pieter de Coninck and Jan Breydel, two important figures during the Flemish battle against the French. I also really like the row of buildings that form their backdrop!

Then a cat caught my eye! As I was framing the shot the gold pieces caught my eye. I didn’t realize until I was cropping the photo for the blog that the two on the left are snails!

This shot is for Roger Anderson! This shop is full of french bulldogs, and they are all wearing shades! Apologies for the glare on the window – flat light makes it tough!

We went shopping for some lace products – another specialty of Belgium. Almost everything at this shop is handmade! I love this window display showing how they lay out making a lace ribbon! How in the world do they keep all of the threads sorted to know which goes next and which direction? I could probably handle five or maybe even ten threads, but I can count sixty-six here!

We take a break and stop here for a Belgian beer and some frites with mayo!

Then we go chocolate shopping! We don’t buy at this particular shop but I forgot to take a picture of the place a block away where we did buy – Jean de Bruges. He had been making chocolate for 47 years! And he also brewed some chocolate beer that we bought to try later!

See Harry Potter in the window? They are crazy about Harry Potter here, and there is a shop here called the Daily Geek that posts a Harry Potter shingle out front and has a doll of Dobby the house elf by the door!

Then on our way out we spy a little park with some great benches! Thar be dragons! Well, if not dragons, at least they are winged serpents! In front of the benches is a large chessboard area, but no playing pieces are around – maybe they come out on sunnier days.

Back on the ship we dry out and then it’s time to leave!

We thought the boat behind us might be an oligarch’s super yacht, but it’s a small cruise ship. This is called “World Explorer”. I see a bunch of people are getting of a bus and walking up the gangway to the ship. May still be an oligarch’s ship – just sayin’!

We push off, no tug required!