Oostende

We wanted to travel to the Belgian coast and see the North Sea.  Oostende is the biggest seaside resort in Belgium and I'd seen it featured in a few French movies (in particular, Place Vendome with Catherine Deneuve and Alain Delon one of my favourites!) so this seemed like a good stop to make.  You can take ferries to England from here (it's one of several ports in Northern France and Belgium that you can travel by boat to Dover), and you can also take a train or boat to Antwerp.

We enjoyed walking on the boardwalk;  it was a chilly day, no one was swimming, but it was very nice to be at the ocean and to eat some wonderful, fresh-caught seafood.  The fishmongers had prepared some escargot soup and small servings of shrimp, lobster, scallops and sauce, ready to eat right there.  Quite a few people were also enjoying this for lunch and the seagulls were diving and stealing people's food!  We were lucky, we were able to keep ours for ourselves.