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Journey to Dordrecht

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Aside from the doctor and staff at Bruges hospital, the folks at Tauck were really good to us by delaying the Wednesday evening sailing from Antwerp so we could make it back to the ship. Literally, we had just taken our first few steps into the reception area when the captain gave the order to cast off and we were underway for an approximate 8 hour trip to Dordrecht. This is a small city built on some islands with rural area nearby. Weather was quite gray with drizzle and 15 degree temps. We skipped the morning tour to see nearby windmills opting to go for a stroll in the old town in the afternoon. A 20 minute walk brought us to the museum which was formerly the home of a prominent lawyer and businessman. When he died in 1922, he gave his large home to a historical society that operates it to this day. Kind of interesting; it's pretty much as he left it at the end of his life. Very heavy furniture, drapery so quite dark inside. Prior to entering the museum, we stopped next door to ...
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Tauck cruise begins

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On Sunday, a mid-afternoon bus ride brought us to the M.S. Grace and we will spend the next 8 nights here. Ship is quite narrow but long- 133 meters! Appears this trip is close to sold out with 125 or so guests. As we were checking in we made the acquaintance of - guess who? - Doug and Nancy from Colorado! Will try to get a pic of the 4 of us at some point. We're one of 2 Canadian couples, two couples from the U.K. and the remainder are American.  We had our first dinner with a very pleasant couple from Chicago. After introductions, he immediately began apologizing for the current political situation. Gesture appreciated but we said let's drop it and just enjoy the experience. Dinner last night was with another very nice couple from Buffalo. Wisely, they steered clear of politics and religion; for our part, we don't bring up the Trump subject. We'll do an afternoon beer tour with them today. There are 7 classes of cabin on this ship and, although we're in the 2nd hi...
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Arrival in Brussels

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We arrived in Amsterdam around noon on Friday after a very smooth KLM flight - they did a great job. Train trip to Brussels was delayed en route by about 3 hours so we arrived in a bleary-eyed state at our centrally located hotel around 7 p.m. The hotel is lovely and just a half block from the Market Square that dates from medieval times. Surrounding structures were originally wood but these burned to the ground during some French invasion. Guild halls you see here were the replacements constructed in the late 1600's. We decided on a two night hotel stay to sufficiently recover from the flight so were not really ambitious on our first full day. We did hop a cab to the Parliamentarium (sp?) at the E.U. to go to their visitor centre. Amazing story of this roughly 75 year project to integrate Europe: politically, commercially, culturally and with a unified monetary system. We lasted 2 hours and wished we had more energy to take it all in. Easter Sunday was movi...
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