A Sunny Day In Veere
Woke up this morning to a gorgeous sunrise around 7 am and were off the ship at 8:30 am for the one hour bus ride to Verre, a quaint little sea-faring town. Probably the most picturesque town we've seen, and as much as I may hate to admit it, maybe more so than Bruges. Of course today it was a clear, sunny day and it was raining all day yesterday in Bruges. The pics before the story of the day.....
So the guy above is NOT our guide......and this is the story - when we arrived in Veere our guide informed us that he was told NOT to take us on a tour of the town and was to simply take us to the central market square, drop us off, and come back two hours later to take us back to the bus. This seemed awfully odd to us but he began leading us at a rapid pace until asked to slow down. As he waited for the rest of the group he was explaining something simple, but without his microphone. When asked to turn it on so we could all here, he said he was sorry but was told NOT to guide us but simply take us to the central square. Got to the square, he looked at his watch and said I'll see you at noon (in two hours). Most shops were not even open yet and we had no idea what to do! What made it even more odd was that there were three other groups from our ship walking around the town with a guide explaining things to them! So Kim, Gary, Claudia & I all dropped into the back of one of them and turned on our listening devices to their channel :) We got about a 15 minute tour (better than nothing) from the guide pictured above. And the one interesting thing he pointed out is pictured on the right. These were hanging on the right side of city hall and were called the "Naughty chains." Anyone who was "naughty" could be sentenced to wear these around their neck and walk the streets while others threw vegetables, etc. at you! The guide then pointed out a restaurant where his guests could go for coffee and added they had delicious apple pie. So we headed over. When the waiter came Kim & Claudia just wanted tea; Gary took hot chocolate (with whipped cream) and the apple pie. When the waiter asked what I wanted I asked if he had a Belgian waffle, which I've been in search of for days. He replied, "I do, I only have ONE left." I shot my hand in the air and said, "I'll take it .... with whipped cream!"
We wandered around for another hour or so until the appointed time came. We walked to the bus and made a brief photo stop at the Delta Water Works which opens and shuts off the interior from the North Sea, then returned to the ship.
There was much chatter amongst the guests about our lack of tour and what to say. Not a single person was satisfied but to be fair we ALL agreed it was a great day, sunny, crisply comfortable, and it was a cute town to walk around in. Upon returning to the ship our program director passed Kim and I and said, "Welcome back, did you enjoy your day?" Kim emphatically said, "NO" and continued walking. Emilee (our PD) stopped with a horrified look on her face and asked what was the problem. I explained - and did say we had a good day but....and as soon as I said our guide had said he would not be giving us a tour Emilee literally jumped back, apologized multiple times and said she would speak to him and made a bee-line to corner him. The last highlight was going through a lock.....though as locks go it had to be one of the least impressive as we lowered maybe five feet, still, was fun to watch.
One last story.....when we left our Florida Panthers hockey team was on "life support" to make the playoffs, but there was a chance, so we packed our jerseys and when we land we will go directly to the arena if they are still alive. Well they won six in a row and with a win in the season finale, when we arrive back we will make the playoffs!
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