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J2B
At the end of our street along the canal in Brugge Wednesday May 20, 2009
Today was the sunniest and warmest day we have seen since coming to Belgium - (68F and sunny) so of course it seemed most appropriate that we should head to the "Sea". Jean and I biked our way to Oostende, and J2B got a morning nap before heading out on the train.
Oostende is protected from the North Sea by a network of dikes, and is said to be the largest city on the Belgian coast, with 67,000 residents. Oostende has a colorful history, starting as a small fishing village, plagued throughout its history by a constant onslaught from seaborne invaders, and then in the twentieth century, destruction came in the form of World War II aerial bombardment. We saw Oostende to be a busy resort town.
We also named Oostende "Most difficult to bike to the city" - after ending up in the industrial area at dead end streets - with the only way to get into the city was biking an additional 15k out and around the town and came in from another angle. In the morning, as we were sailing through the Hermitage - a beautiful green space - I blew a
BAM
He loves the stoops and had to stop and sit a bit on each on! back tire. Despite the language barrier, we ended up coming across a lady that was merely riding to the local bread store for a morning fresh loaf - and she walked us to a local bike shop (over 3k). It definitely felt that we might have eventually found the shop but not as quickly or directly by any means!
The bike shop owner was absolutely delightful, fixed the flat, said we had "cheap" rental bikes, told me I could have ridden on the flat as long as I didn't jump any curbs, and pointed us in the right direction to continue our ride to Oostende.
By this time it was getting late for us to make our meeting point of the train station to meet up with J2B, so we rode more directly along the canal. A beautiful ride, warm and sunny.
Oostende offered us Frites (fries) and burgers (sausage patty on a bun?) - but food tasted great and we walked along the town streets and the boardwalk. Blake got his little face pink but had a great day, as did his parents! Jean and I put our bikes on the train (cost of 5 Euros)
Jen and Eric
Running to catch the bus to the train to the plane :-) and took the train with J2B back to Brugge, noticing the prison along the route.
We ended up biking/walking 52K - no wonder the lunch tasted so good :-)
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Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0511s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ron Higman
non-member comment
I could use some advice
Your blog is very entertaining, and BAM is very cute. My wife and I will be staying 3 nights in Brugge and 2 nights in Paris in mid-July. When we are in Brugge, we intend to take some day trips. We are thinking of taking a late afternoon train to Ostende for a nice walk along the shore and then have a good seafood dinner. Is that a good plan? For another day, if you could only choose one, would you choose Ghent, Antwerp or Brussels for train trip? Would it be too much to visit Ghent and Ostende in the same day? Do you advise renting bikes for Brugge? Your Photos are great. It looks like you are having fun. Thanks Ron