Bruges, Belgium

 We docked at Zeebrugge which is a port city for Bruges.  Our tour wasn't until the afternoon, so we had a quiet morning on the ship.  It was a beautiful day, although quite warm.  Our tour was basically a walking tour of the inner town within the walls.  Buses aren't allowed inside the gates, so we did a lot of walking.  It was very crowded and, as I said, quite warm - around 84 or so.  The guide was very good and informative.

Lots of canals

Don't recall the name of this former Catholic (Jesuit) church, but it was built in 1645.  As with most churches, it's not really used for services anymore except for Baptisms or First Communions.

Lots of these carriages. There are many rules for the treatment of the horses.  For example, they can only work one day before getting two day's rest.  We saw some of them having their legs washed down in between rides.

This was on the corner of a building in a square that used to be quite smelly because it was where all the hide tanners worked.  This man is wrinkling up his nose.

After our walking tour, we had some free time.  Michael wanted to go to a bike shop we had passed to get some leather treatment cream for his bicycle seat. Then we went with Patrick and Lois to an outside cafe in the shade where we had a very welcome cold beer before meeting our guide again.  We had another bit of a walk back to meet the bus.  My watch said we walked over 6 miles today and I can believe it. 

This is outside the old town.  It's the new performance center built over the train tunnel and has around 6,000 spirngs to eliminate any vibration from the trains that might interfere with the acoustics.

Back at the ship at around 6:00 pm for a quick fresh-up then down to the Star's Lounge for a welcome cocktail.  We had dinner with the gang at Compass Rose and then back to the cabin.  The show was a combination of the comedian and the magician/comedian, which didn't really appeal to us as much as climbing into bed.