Monday, January 5 – Sunday January 11, 2026 Queen Anne to Hamburg, Rotterdam and Bruges.

Following a sea day on the 5^th, with a gala evening requiring the first rollout of the penguin suit, the ship docked in Hamburg, Germany, on Tuesday January 6^th. With the forecast for high temperatures to be below freezing and my current illness there was no way I was going to be able to get off the ship today – all I wanted to do was sleep between intense coughing fits. I managed to get an appointment to see the ship’s doctor in the afternoon, she prescribed antibiotics.

Another sea day on the 7^th and then we docked in Rotterdam, Netherlands on Thursday January 8th, for a 2-day visit. Feeling slightly better I joined the rest of our little group for a short trip into the center of Rotterdam – taking a taxi across the Erasmus bridge to the market hall. The market hall is an amazing giant cocoon-like structure with glass walls at either end and apartments and offices built into the walls – inside there are gourmet food stalls, restaurants, coffee shops and a supermarket. I wandered the market and gawped at the fine produce on display, I’m always a bit disappointed when I visit markets like this – I really want to procure a range of top-notch food items and cook a great meal, a bit difficult when staying aboard a cruise ship.

Across the square outside the market we found the famous Rotterdam cube houses – a terrace of very strangely designed houses; conventional shops below but with cube structures on top that have been rotated so that it appears as if one corner of each cube is sticking into the shops below. One enterprising resident has set their home up as a museum, charging an entry fee – we didn’t have time to visit.

Across the icy square was St. Lauren’s Church (Laurenskerk) an imposing mostly brick structure that was reconstructed after World War 2 and is the only structure in the city to be rebuilt in its original style, thanks to strong lobbying of the townsfolk. Curiously the interior of the church was completely devoid to pews, creating a vast open space like some kind of sacred dance floor. Other quirky things about this church; only a small number of stained glass windows, most were plain glass, an enormous organ that seemed a bit out of place and, strangest of all, many of the interior stone columns were not vertical – this created in me a certain amount of uneasiness and prompted a totally irrational though swift exit. I was left wondering if the church builders of the 1950’s lacked the same skills as their medieval forebears.

Back at the market hall we enjoyed wonderful hot chocolate on a deck above one of the stalls. Steamed milk was provided with an inserted wooden stick, a large mass of chocolate was attached to the bottom of the stick, and the recipient is invited to stir in the chocolate to achieve their desired consistency. A big dollop of whipped cream was provided on the side to be optionally deposited on top of the hot infusion. I could not image a more perfect drink at that point in time for me; I was cold and a touch miserable due to the flu – the hot chocolate provided the perfect pick-me-up, warming me from the inside out and bringing a little color to my cheeks.

We decided to walk back to the ship and along the way stopped at the maritime museum. The museum consists of a large building and a series of historic boats in an adjacent waterway, none of these were open at this time of the year so we focused on the museum building. The maritime history of Rotterdam is well represented in the museum with a particularly good select of scale model ships, I also found a fascinating old sailing ship ruder – an immense wooden structure attached to a wall. Within the museum there is also an exhibit focused on the “deep sea”. This is a mockup of an oil drilling platform, and we were subjected to realistic safety briefings and invited to don optional safety gear before ascending to the main platform level. An impressive array of video screens creates a very realistic impression of being actually out at sea on an oil platform and a series of challenging video based games further created the immersive effect. Exit from the platform was via an elevator down to the “deep sea”, a darkened space where we could look out at the virtual seabed complete with divers and marine life.

Suitable wrapped up we trekked across the Erasmus Bridge trudging through ice and slush to make it back to the comfort of the ship. Later in the afternoon I saw the ship’s doctor and she confirmed I had a nasty chest infection and prescribed suitable medication.

The next day, Friday January 9^th, I was once again low on energy and suffering from the effects of the flu and so spent the day recuperating on the ship.

Saturday, January 10^th and we are docked in Zeebrugge in Belgium; the temperature has climbed to be just slightly above freezing. The main attraction from the port is to visit the historic town of Bruges and to enable this I had pre-booked us seats on a bus service set up specifically to take cruise ship passengers from the port to the town, about 20 minutes away. The historic center of Bruges has very narrow and winding streets and so traffic is severely restricted; the bus dropped us on the outskirts, and we followed a nice path along a canal into the historic center. Though very cold the sky was clear with no sign of rain or snow; I was thankful for the thermal vest I was wearing having procured it specifically for this part of the trip.

The historic center of Bruges is unbelievably photogenic, practically everywhere you turn there is an opportunity for a great picture. We had visited Bruges exactly 12 years ago, on this exact date – and it was bloody cold then as well. The Church of Our Lady is famous for housing a famous Michelangelo sculpture, the Bruges Madonna – this was the first work of the famous artist to ever leave Italy when it was purchased by some cloth merchants in 1504. The statue was twice removed from Bruges, once by French revolutionaries in 1794 and again by the Nazis in 1944. The sculpture is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s Pieta which we had seen in the Vatican, the obvious difference being Jesus as a fully grown man in the latter. Though the Bruges Madonna is definitely the main attraction in the church I found the tombs of Charles the Bold and his daughter Mary of Burgundy to be very impressive, nowadays we just don’t name people like they did back in the 15^th century.

Chocolate, lace and beer – these are the things that Bruges is famous for nowadays and on our previous visit we had been shocked and amazed at the human body parts that could be created in chocolate, the town appears to have cleaned itself up in the last 12 years as there was hardly a chocolate penis to be seen anywhere in the shops. We set out to recreate an incredible hot chocolate experience we had all those years ago but were unable to find the exact shop, maybe it had gone out of business – I don’t think it really mattered as we found the excellent Olivier’s Chocolate Shop and Bar which was just as good. Like in Rotterdam the foamed milk was served but this time with a side of chocolate chips; I stirred in the chips and whipped until I had it just right – I had my hot chocolate enhanced with a shot of rum, purely for medicinal purposes of course.

Suitably fortified we pressed on to the main market square, which is dominated by the medieval bell tower, like in London we found the remnants of the Christmas market covering most of the center of the square. Not far from the market is a very popular photo spot that overlooks a bend in the canal, we took the tourist shots and then headed back for the bus to the ship.