Oostende, Belgium - waffles anyone?

I ate so much great food in Belgium! My first few days in Oostende were spent exploring the city; there’s a really nice beach. I ate tons of waffles and chocolate. There’s also really good mussels in Oostende.

On our second full day in Belgium there was a full day port program. We took a bus to Gent, a really beautiful old city. We had the best tour guide. He was this little old man who had retired from his job and did tours for fun. We saw some amazing cathedrals, some beautiful canals, and it was even better because the sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At the end of the tour we visited an old castle that used to be the home of the count of Flanders, but now it’s a museum. There was lots of cool medieval weaponry. After lunch we got back onto the bus and went to Brugge. This was probably the nicest city that I’ve seen all year! There are tons of canals running through the city and so many old buildings. We saw a lot of cool churches as well. We were allowed to stay the evening in Brugge and take a train back to Oostende later that night.



Canal in Gent



My friend Holly and I



Our third day in Belgium was another port program. We went to Brussels. I have to say that I preferred Brugge to Brussels. Brussels was a lot more like a big city, and therefore not as charming. There were a lot of historical buildings though, and we visited the royal palace and more churches. We went by a really sketchy flea market. I feel bad talking about food so much but I had the best falafel of my life in Brussels and also my favourite waffle. We saw the famous statue of the boy peeing. It was kind of like the Mona Lisa: the statue is super famous but it’s really small and over-rated. There were chocolate replicas that were bigger! I was a little disappointed. When I got back to Oostende I went out for a Sarah supper with the other three Sarahs on the ship. It was a lot of fun!



Waffles everywhere!



Peeing boy statue

The next day we had full day shore leave. A group of my friends and I decided that it would be fun to bike to Brugge, about 25 km from Oostende. We rented bikes (they were free if you gave a passport number!) and we picked up a picnic lunch at the grocery store. The weather was amazing! It was really hot out and we could ride in t-shirts. There wasn’t a single cloud. You could follow a canal all the way from Oostende to Brugge - it was a really nice path and there were lots of bikers and walkers that we saw on our way. We passed a few small towns. We stopped a lot to rest along the canal and we had a really nice lunch in a field where all the buttercups and daisies were blooming. When we got to Brugge we locked up our bikes and walked around the city because cobblestone biking wasn’t very comfortable! I went on a canal tour in a little boat which was really nice. We took the train back to Oostende because we were running late and the bikes needed to be returned by 7 pm. You had to pay extra to take the bikes on the train. While we were riding the train the conductor got really mad at us because we didn’t put the bikes in the right compartment! We were never told that there was a special compartment so it was a little frustrating. All in all though it was probably one of my favourite days all year!

Biking along the canal from Oostende to Brugge




Cool recycling station in Belgium

 We got shore leave on our last day until 3pm because we had to wait for high tide so I just went for internet and shopped a bit. I also consumed way to much chocolate :) That seemed to be a bit of the theme for this port!