Like many industrial ports that cruise ships use Zeebrugge was… not particularly exciting to look at, although some naval vessels did provide a slight distraction from the typical cranes and containers you come to expect.

A few years back I started a tradition that for any formal occasion on ship or special meals when out I would have a Vodka Martini with three olives. I don’t like Vodka Martinis and I despise olives but it just feels right. You have to leave the olives in the glass until about halfway down it, then throw the olives as far away as possible. Those are the rules. I carried on my tradition aboard Azura although, as with all the other cocktails we were drinking, I instantly discovered that the difference between drinks measures on Princess as opposed to P&O was very, very noticeable. Now, you do pay more for drinks on Princess but you get more too. Quite a bit more as it turns out. My Vodka Martini looked quite petite next to my wife’s gin and tonic.

A surprising – pleasantly surprising! – discovery were the beer and wine flights offered on the ship in, respectively, Brodie’s Bar and The Glass House. Some of the beers are shown in menu photos further down the page. We were a little disappointed that not all the beer flight offers were available. Had we picked up the ship in the Caribbean we could have understood this but we embarked at Southampton and all the beers were British; there didn’t seem to be a decent excuse for a non-fully-stocked bar. For the wines we originally simply had the intention of reading our books with a single glass each but the lure of finding the flights available – three 125ml glasses of a particular theme (e.g. South American Reds) – was too hard to resist.

A few shots of some of the bar menu pages showing a sample of what was available and prices for the drinks on board because I’m now a seasoned travel blogger and know that this is the sort of information that makes people weak at the knees and giddy with excitement.

Since this short cruise on the Azura took us to Belgium and since we visited Ghent and since we happened to find ourselves in an alehouse in Ghent (as you do) it feels only right and proper to include a picture of that establishment’s interior and the beers we ended up getting after asking advice from the barman as to what suited our tastes too.

In addition to traditional wall-daubed graffiti and street art there was also a sculpture that could be used as an artistic canvas.

In truth the graffiti was not of a fantastically high quality but we appreciated that a place like Ghent had it.

It was grey at first but the sun did pop out for a bit as the day wore on. Ghent was architecturally stunning with much of it being medieval although the Dutch influence on the region was clear to see as well. St Bavo’s Cathedral was gorgeous inside; one of the most attractive cathedrals I’ve ever been in. Sadly, no photos were allowed and we abide by rules even if other visitors to the place ignored them completely. Gits.

After the cathedral we passed through Graffiti Street and made our way to Gravensteen Castle. After our climb to the top of that structure to look out over the rooftops of Ghent we felt in need of a beer so hit the one you can see pictured below. Pictures of the beer we had as well as the inside of the place can be found here.

As we met up with our guide and headed out of Ghent to find the coach that would take us back to Azura docked in Zeebrugge we passed a wedding photoshoot taking place making use of a drone. I couldn’t help but take a few shots of the happy couple too.

After our initial drop off in the centre of Ghent and our visit to St Bavo’s Cathedral we wandered through Graffiti Street, crossed over one of the bridges spanning the canals in the city, and found ourselves face-to-face with the structure. With Ghent’s architecture being the way it is the presence of a castle in the network of streets didn’t look too out of place.

We paid the entrance fee and wandered inside. In terms of rooms and things of interest in the castle there were plenty to explore and many explanations and examples of the types of torture equipment typically used in Ghent. Lovely.

The route through the interior of Gravensteen inevitably leads to its rooftop which affords great views over the surrounding city of Ghent and plenty of wide, sweeping photographs. The climb up was fairly steep but not the worst or longest one we’ve done when we’ve visited castles back home.

After descending there is another walk around the inside the walls that can be taken. This allows for some views from the archery points in the walls outwards as well as unobstructed views and photo opportunities of the main keep of Gravensteen too.

The first of our planned stops was to the Bubbles At Home store in search of some of its wonderful soap. On a trip to Ghent earlier in the year on Azura we’d picked up a bar on a whim and discovered it was incredible. We’d checked before this mini cruise and seen that there was another store in Bruges and that it was open on Sunday so this time we stocked up.

Just a few doors away from the soap store was our next stop, the Torture Museum, a small museum of the history of torture located in one of Europe’s oldest prisons. This is one of those places where you really need to take the time to read all the descriptions of the various devices on display to truly appreciate what a barbaric species humans are but there were some fascinating revelations too, such as the early requirement of needing more than just one eye-witness or circumstantial evidence to convict of crimes that triggered the perverse logic of utilising torture as an evidence-gathering mechanism.

The entry fee to the torture museum included a postcard memento which was a nice touch. Highly recommended trip if you’re ever in Bruges.

We resumed walking for a little bit after this to take some more photos and hunt down some place that would sell us beer.

Finding a couple of places to sit down and try some local beers did not prove to be a problem. The first of these was a small café with 20 beers on tap. We only had one each and timed our visit to perfection as we sat and watched hail pelt down outside.

The second place we had a drink was somewhere we’d been before during our Crown Princess cruise visit a few months prior, the Brewery Bourgogne des Flandres. On some future visit we must get around to touring the brewery there but for this particular trip we satisfied ourselves with just a drink each as our time in Bruges was limited.

The remainder of the time was spent casually walking some of the streets of Bruges again, taking a few photos here and there, before making our way back to where we would catch our coach back to the ship.

Most trips to Bruges invariably end with you finding yourself on the outskirts with a short walk into the city, typically over one or two bridges that span the many canals. The walk is no more than five minutes and the ground is level, though cobbled in places (reflecting the medieval heritage of Bruges) so care should be taken. Indeed, at the conclusion of our excursion one of our party tripped on a cobble and crashed to the floor, knocking herself out briefly. Her husband, a retired doctor, assured everyone she was okay but I hope she got some proper checking over by the ship’s medical staff once back onboard.

Bruges thrived from the 12th century onwards owing to its location that was a natural meeting point for several trading routes across Europe and its access to the sea via the canals for which the city is well known.

Bruges is one of the most well-preserved medieval cities in Europe. Despite its reduction in importance from the 16th century onwards it underwent several attempts to flourish by changing the industries and trades under which it had previously prospered. In the late 19th century the city was promoted as a tourist destination to wealthy Victorians. During both World Wars the city was occupied by the Germans and suffered hardly any damage at all. The city was liberated by the Canadians in World War 2 and a bridge in that country’s honour was pointed out to us when we finished our excursion.

One of the notable sights of Bruges included De Halve Maan Brewery, the oldest brewery in the city we were told, and still brewing its own ales. We fully intended to visit this place during our free time at the end of the excursion (as we’re fond of a local ale) but the place was absolutely heaving and we ended up finding somewhere else. We stopped many times to be shown sights of significant interest in Bruges such as the city hall, the Belfry, St Salvatore’s Cathedral, and the Groenerei canal. In the wide open expanse of the Markt (the market square) there was a statue of Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck, leaders of a revolt against the French in the early 1300s.

After around an hour we had completed our walking tour portion of our Bruges excursion and made our way to Mariastraat where we would be boarding a canal boat for the water-based portion of our day out in Belgium.

I wanted to get to the back of the boat for a couple of reasons: I’m quite considerate when it comes to not wanting to spoil other people’s enjoyment of an event so this would mean I wouldn’t have to concern myself with wondering if my camera was blocking someone’s view or the photograph they were just about to take; additionally, it’s quite nice sometimes to get other people in your shots deliberately from a composition and scaling perspective.

It was a lot cooler on the canal than it had been walking around Bruges, as you can imagine. If the weather is warm and you’re getting tired of walking around then a canal boat trip is a great way to rest your feet and cool down. For us, it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been piddling down with rain; it might be the naval port city blood in us but we almost always take a boat trip of some description whenever we’re travelling if the option presents itself.

The boat trip gave everyone a chance to look at some of the medieval architecture of Bruges either from closer than they otherwise would have been able to or from a different angle. In terms of information imparted to us on the tour, however, we did have a slight issue in that we appeared to be mostly going over the same ground and same buildings of interest that we’d covered on the walking tour. This wasn’t an awful thing but it would have been nicer if the day’s tour as a whole had taken this into consideration with far less of an overlap. For this particular tour arranged through Princess Cruises the duplication of content was a minor gripe on an otherwise lovely day in the Belgian city.

We eventually made it back to the starting point of our canal boat tour of Bruges where after some waiting around to let a few other boats navigate the narrow waterways we disembarked for a spot of free time in the city prior to our departure back to the cruise ship.

The brewery offers a tour of itself and one day when we hit Bruges with plenty of time to spare we intend to take one but for this occasion we made do with selecting from the beers on tap and enjoying something cool, refreshing, and local.

This brought our time in the city to an end so we wandered back to the Walplein where we were to meet up with the rest of our excursion group from the Crown Princess. My photos from this point on consisted of a lot of shooting from the hip, relying on the brightness of the day, a slightly raised ISO level, and a wider aperture to ensure fast enough shots and sharpness even while moving. As a result composition was something of a non-entity but I quite often like taking photos like this as it will produce pictures you wouldn’t normally think to take and they’re not always terrible. Often, but not always.

With breakfast out of the way we had a little bit of time before meeting up to take our excursion into Bruges and as we got our bags ready for the day we got to watch as the Oceania Marina reversed into the dock behind us from our aft balcony viewpoint.

I don’t know much about the Marina cruise ship but it did appear that amongst its passengers were astronauts. Weird.

After our very enjoyable day in Bruges there was time for a few more shots from and of our balcony (to show how large it is again; see also: Crown Princess, Aft Balcony, Departing Southampton) before we settled down to the important job of seeing how far we could progress through the cocktails in the various bars on board the Crown Princess.