From Oostende: A Tale of Two Cities or the Beast and Beauty – Bruges (pictures immediately below) and Ghent

Tuesday - 11 June 2013 – Oostende, Belgium

Oostende is a beach resort, although like many European cities I suppose it has its charms including yet another cathedral, canals with locks, and other features common to the "low countries".  The view of the expansive white sand beach as we sailed into the little but busy harbor was striking. So was the nearby railway station with its gigantic collection of commuters' bicycles. Red sideways mark the bike paths and pedestrians are best advised to avoid venturing into any pavement in Europe that is colored red to avoid the way of bikes.

Barbara and I avoided the $99 per person, "Bruges On Your Own", bus transfer sold by the ship by going directly to the train station and purchasing two four euro train tickets. We were in Bruges in 15 minutes, saving $190 before we were in Oostende a half hour.

Bruges, Belgium

I had visited Bruges in the mid-1990s and found the town very charming if a bit touristy. In the almost 20 years since then Bruges has become very touristy and just a little bit charm remained. That is, the town hall is still pretty, but it's a museum now and the toilets are locked. Just saying. The streets are pretty if you avoid the endless string of overpriced lace shops, tourist souvenir shops, and especially the very overpriced chocolate shops. One shop was selling "fine Belgium chocolates" molded into male and female body parts. (No circumcision jokes please.) A bunch of Japanese tourists were finding this store most amusing. Instead Barbara and fought our way through the throngs of people milling about and worked our way back to the train station via the very lovely canals filled with many dozens of old tourists being hollered at by loud speakers. A few scenes on the walk were quite lovely—as most of Bruges used to be.

Ghent, Belgium

For an additional six euro each we continued on the fast train line to Ghent, avoiding another $129 per person ship's tour. A 1½ mile "less than one mile, the sign at the station said" walk to get to the very nifty main town square was interesting. Ghent is a real city with lots of medieval and typical old European architecture. We enjoyed a few hours strolling about the downtown as well as a nice lunch of smoked salmon with real Stella Artois beer, not the overly sweet imitation sold in the US and then took a modern tram back to the station for the 35 minute ride back to Oostende and Silver Cloud.

The savings of almost $400 by using the very efficient and comfortable local train service was a topic of discussion between me and a fellow passenger who had purchased the ship's tour. She was not amused when I told her what we had done. A matter of fact, she sought me out the next morning to accuse me of "doing the sort of thing that causes ship's tours to be cancelled for lack of interest." I asked her what her point was. Made my morning.