Another beautiful day – chilly but clear. We are so lucky! Pack up and head down to the Java café to meet our cruise critic pals with whom we are sharing a cab. We hit the dock about 20 minutes early and hang out chatting and sharing travel stories. We are one of 3 cabs that has been booked with the Brugge taxi service. The first of which left earlier, 2 others (us and another group) are leaving at 9. As the 9 o’clock hour approaches, and no cabs arrive, we begin to get a bit antsy. There are 2 or 3 available cabs sitting on the side of the port, but since we’ve promised this company, we don’t feel right using someone different.
Two of our group go over to the taxi van just sitting there and ask him how much – and it’s about the same – but he can only hold 7 – not 8. That’s not going to work.
Finally about 8:55 a Brugge taxi service cab pulls up, but they are looking for the Frances Family. Hmmm….they allegedly only have 3 vans with 8 passenger capacity and we hired them all – so….where did this van come from, and who is the Frances Family? The taxi driver calls someone, and comes back with a sign for the other Cruise Critic group. Okaaaayyyyyy. So, they all pile in, trying to step over a huge jug of water that we are laughing and calling ballast.
We ask the taxi driver about our driver, and she says “they will come”. Not very comforting. We ask again, she says they are on the way. We then ask “today?”, she grunts yes. Again, not the most confident of answers. So the pow wow begins. We decide if this taxi doesn’t show up by 9:15, we’re taking the other cab. Meanwhile, the guy in the available taxi van comes over and says he’ll take 8 – we can squeeze. So we say we’ll think about it.
As the time keeps marching on, we decide to blow off the “reserved” taxi and take our guy who has been sitting patiently at the dock the whole morning. We squeeze in and whip off to Brugge. 30 minutes – easy. And we watch the road the whole time and never saw another taxi van heading to the port. We’re thinking we made the smart move here! We’re in town by 9:45 – we tip the guy enough to make sure he’ll come back for us at 3:30 (which we’re really not in much doubt to be honest), and we all head off in our different directions.
We’ve got 45 minutes before our tour meeting, so we wander around a bit, taking pictures of the horses and carriages on Markt Square and the great Flemish style buildings all around (I LOVE the stair step gables on the Flemish buildings). We have an overpriced cappuccino on the square (you’re paying for the atmosphere!), then head back to the clock tower to wait for Mieke and our Pink Bear country bike tour.
Mieke is an absolute doll – one of those personable, fun people you just fall in love with immediately. We chat a bit, gather our small group (only 6 of us) and off we go to get our bikes. She has a little shed (same as Jos – the other great bike tour guide in Brugge) off an alley and we all saddle up (watching the cute Japanese couple who seem a bit timid on the bikes and can’t really speak all that much English) and off we go.
Within minutes we are out of the main city and cycling on a path along one of the canals leading out of the city toward the medieval village of Damme. Again – an absolutely beautiful day – sunny, with a crisp breeze, but not chilly enough to keep our jackets on. We cycle next to the canal for a while, then stop and climb up the embankment to watch the paddle wheel boat chugging down the canal. Mieke tells us about the canal systems, the “ponders”, which is “reclaimed” land – everything is so low or below sea level here, that the residents had to use fill, peat, soil, silt, to build up the land to be above the water, this is called “ponders” (same as in Amsterdam).
A bit further down the path, we stop at an original windmill for photos and another explanation of windmills, their use, and their building style. It is at this point in the tour that Ed realizes he’s lost his cruise card. Uh oh! Oh well, not like we don’t have experience with this, so we know it’s not going to be all that horrible to replace, plus, we’ve got our passports, so it shouldn’t be an issue. And, since the taxi will take us straight to the ship, we won’t have to worry about security stopping us like the first time in Wellington, NZ. So, we’re not all that concerned, but it will be a great joke now for the rest of the day!
After the windmill, we cycle into Damme, an adorable little village about 30 minutes cycling time from Brugge. It’s sleepy and quiet and very quaint. Mieke regales us with the local legends: The black dog (which is depicted everywhere in the village – on signs, on buildings, on every little curb stanchion, on the town hall, you name it- it has a dog on it!). The black dog legend goes as follows: The people of Damme were having problems with leaks in the dam. Everything they filled up one leak, another would pop up. They knew they had to fix it or their village would be flooded and they couldn’t figure out how to stop the leaks. There happened to be a mysterious black dog that appeared in the village about the same time, and it followed everyone around, but no one knew who owned it. For some reason (that I think I must have missed in the tale), one of the men thought the dog was good luck. And then, he looked at the dam, and thought the hole in the dam resembled the shape of a dog. So, they stuffed the dog into the hole – and it sealed up the dam perfectly. They used that dog as a mold (don’t worry all you animal lovers, they didn’t hurt the dog), filled in the dam from the other side and slowly pushed the dog out. The dog was the hero and became the symbol of Damme.
Next stop – behind the church to look at sheep pastures and an old embattlement from the War. And…the next legend: UylenSpiegel! This was a guy who was a little bit of a court jester, always joking, very witty and sort of like a Robin Hood. His name seemed to fit him well: “Uylen” means “owl” – wise or witty; “spiegel” means “mirror” and he had a favorite saying of look in the mirror before you judge.
As the legend has it, he traveled all over Belgium, never staying in one place too long because he would annoy the rulers of the villages with his jokes. He ended up in Damme, and fell in love, so he decided to stay, but once again, he annoyed the village and the rulers imprisoned him. When he was to be executed, they granted him one wish (but it couldn’t be to walk away free). If the rulers didn’t want to do the wish or couldn’t comply with the wish, then UylenSpiegel would go free. He was crafty, so he said after he was hanged in the square, he wanted the rulers to leave his body hanging there, naked, and for the rest of their lives, every time they went to work they had to kiss his @$$. Well, you can imagine how popular that wish was – and he was let free. Pretty cute.
They have a great statue in the square behind the church of UylenSpiegel and the Black Dog. (check back later for the pix.)
After the legends, we stopped in a nice restaurant off the main square for….yes…WAFFLES! Yay! And beer of course, but waffles! Ed had a caramel and whipped cream waffle, and I had a chocolate and whipped cream one. Yummy. We managed to talk to the Japanese couple – slowly with some hand motions – and they were absolutely adorable. They are from Yokohoma, and they explained how they felt during the earthquake – they live in an old house, so there are cracks and it shook a lot, but it is ok. They said the road was like a ribbon and they were outside and they shook and shook and shook (you had to see the hand and body motions for that). So cute. And how adventurous – they are in Belgium and going to Amsterdam and barely speak English, much less Dutch. Gotta hand it to them!
Back on the bikes, we cycle through farmland on the other side of the canal Mieke and Ed negotiate a deal for him to stay and help her with the bike tours since he’s lost his seapass and won’t be able to get back on the ship. Sounds like a deal! LOL.
We get back into town, and go to see the old wooden windmills in town, then head through the center of town stopping to admire all the different architectural styles in the city. There is French, Renaissance, Spanish and Flemish, just to name a few. We also learn about the window tax – in the early days people were taxed on how many windows they had. So, if they couldn’t pay the tax or thought it was too much, they would brick up a window. Thus the phrase “daylight robbery” which is similar to our “highway robbery”.
Back at the shed, we say goodbye to Mieke and the Japanese couple (the other couple with us was actually on our ship and in our cruise critic group , although we didn’t know them). We had plenty of time before we had to catch our taxi back to the ship, so we wandered off to the grocery store. Provisioned up – with the additional purchase of great local chocolates (at a fraction of the cost in any of the local stores!!) and headed to a little square where we had had waffles on one of our previous trips here.
Simon Stevinplein square – cute little leafy square a couple of blocks off of Markt square. We found Jerry’s Cigar bar and sat down for a large beer (5 Euros) and a 1/4 L wine (7 Euros). Much better than on the main square where it is daylight robbery! Sat in the sun, drinking, checking email on free wi-fi and generally just enjoying the day.
We meandered back to Markt square in time to see our taxi driver take another fare. Hmmmm, should we be nervous? We’ve got 1/2 an hour, so we think we’re fine, but we’re not mentioning it to an of our fellow taxi riders as we think they may get a tad nervous. As we hung out waiting, we noticed 2 “food truck” type trailers selling Frieten (Fritte or Fries!). Ooohhhh, real Belgium fritte? On the street – yep – we’re in! A medium box with Curry ketchup. That just completed our carb hell day – but oh boy was it worth it. They were so so good. As Rachel would say – Yummo!
Our little cabbie arrives back at the appointed hour (phew!) and we all pile into the van. Everyone trades stories: One guy lost his drivers license and bank ATM card, but at least he kept his credit card; we heard the other taxi driver with the other Cruise Critic group this morning, had to stop constantly to fill up the van with water (the jug we joked about as ballast was truly there for a reason – ugh), another couple in that van wanted to get off somewhere different so it cost everyone else more…..obviously we made the right decision with our little guy.
We whip out of town and are at the port in no time, but uh oh, we are stopped at the security gate and asked to show our cruise cards. Ummmm….ok….we’re all crowded in the back of the van (seats 6, we’ve packed 7 in there). So, we all just hold out our cruise cards and sort of shove them in the security officers face. She checks them all closely, and then says ok, and waves us through. Phew! She didn’t count cards to passengers. Squeaked by on that one or we’d be standing at the darn gate waiting for someone from the ship to come fetch us!
It was easy to replace the card though – just needed the passport and they checked the picture aboard to the ID and asked for Ed’s DOB. Done, to the reception desk, two new cards. We’re good….until Lisbon that is! Ha Ha!
Back aboard for 2 sea days. Next stop….Lisbon!
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