Northern European Cruise: Belgium

August 9, 2025 | From the Founder, Patrick Verst

Zeebrugge & Brugge, Belgium

Long at last, we have finally made it to the tenth and final day of the Northern European cruise! We arrived in the port town of Zeebrugge, an industrial town and doesn't offer a whole lot for tourists to do as far as I am aware. That being said, I am very happy I booked an excursion through Norwegian for this port.

Once we arrived in Zeebrugge, we took a thirty-minute bus ride to Brugge, where we went on a guided walking tour of the historic and very picturesque downtown. The city was so picture-perfect and clean that it almost felt like were in a gated community that was built over 500 years ago and maintained by Walt Disney World's most meticulous custodial cast members and landscapers...to put things in Florida man terms.

Sadly, my radio and earbuds combo that I was given for this excursion didn't work the best, thus making it very difficult to hear our tour guide for much of the tour. As a result, I can't tell you much of anything about the history of the architecture, but I do know that the Basilica of the Holy Blood dates back to the 1100s, meaning it's nearly 900 years old!

After a couple hours of the guided walking tour, we went on a narrated boat ride to explore some of the parts of town that we allegedly wouldn't have had enough time to walk through. I was a little shocked to see our boat driver hand-feeding swans along the way! I had a few swan encounters in Northern Michigan as a kid, and I can tell you they are not always the nicest creatures, no matter how pretty they look. I saw one instance as a kid when a swan charged at our jet ski and caused it flip over while we were in a no wake zone, meaning our friends on the jet ski legally couldn't speed up to get away from the swan that was charging at them. Fortunately, we saw no charging swans in Brugge, and they were on their best behavior while we were there!

Look at our boat captain's hand in the swan's mouth!

After the boat tour, we had a couple hours to explore at our own leisure, and the town was getting very busy at that point. Similar to as I did in Amsterdam, I went to a very not trendy sit-down restaurant that was 100% not authentic Belgian food. No waffles, no fries and no beer for me. Rather, I went to Tenzin Sushi & Momo to enjoy some sushi! It seems that most people don't go to Brugge for the sushi in the afternoon, because I was the only customer in the restaurant for the first 30 minutes of my meal. It was glorious to get away from the crowds, and the food was delicious!

I still had a bit of time left after lunch and didn't have much else in particular that I wanted to explore with how busy things were getting. As a result, after lunch, I went to The Flower Cafe to get some coffee. The vibes in this particular cafe were a lot different from what I typically prefer in my coffee shops, but the vibes were so unique that I just had to indulge. So I went for the coffee, and I stayed for the tea! I started with a rose latte and got a rose tea after I finished that. Aside from a jasmine tea, I'm not typically very fond of floral tasting warm beverages, but the vibes told me I had to get a warm floral beverage the moment I walked into the cafe.

Rose latte

Rose tea

Once coffee and tea time concluded, I had one last thing I had to achieve before I could meet back up with the group to catch the bus to head back to the ship. Although my gluten sensitivity may have prevented me from enjoying the waffles and beer, it wasn't going to stop me from enjoying some Belgian chocolate! Short on time at this point, I ducked into one of the first chocolate stores I could find on my way back to meet up with our group and I got a chocolate bar from Verheecke. I didn't particularly have time to read ingredients lists, nor did I care to take time to even look at what type of chocolate bar I was purchasing. I saw what looked to be a bar of dark chocolate that had some big old clunkers of nuts on the outside. The massive nuts made it unique, and unique meant that it was the perfect fit for me! It turned out to be a bar of dark chocolate with hazelnuts, and I savored that chocolate bar until we arrived in London the next morning. It was perfect!

Those are some nice nuts!

I really didn't know how to integrate any of these photos of the architecture into my storytelling of this blog post. So please enjoy this montage of photos of the remarkable architecture of Brugge, Belgium!