First Cycle Day Accomplished!

Saturday morning we started out doing a stroll through Bruge, being blindly led my yours truly!!  We went on a canal boat ride that took us through the city, showed us the lovely architecture and treated us to some interesting and humorous commentary.
In the afternoon we made our way, on foot, to our boat.  It was a bit of a gong show as we navigated our way, dragging our suitcases, trying to figure how how to get through a traffic circle. After a bit of frustration on everyone's part, we finally found our boat, the MS Gandalf. We were greeted by a very interesting character named Hans. We got settled in to our rooms and had the afternoon free. Some of us more dedicated travellers :) walked back to explore Briges while the more pathetic members of the group went to the pub. (Ok, so maybe I am just a little bit jealous that they had fun without me)!
We were treated to an absolutely amazing dinner, the size of the chef is a testament to his own food!! We are going to eat well.
We met our guide for the week, Rikko and I had him blushing and speechless in no time!!  He didn't know how to react when I informed him, with a totally straight face, that we had no intention of biking on this trip, we just came to drink and ride the boat!!
After dinner we went for a lovely stroll through Bruges at night, so amazing!
Today we were all excited and ready to go on our first ride. We were happy to see that it was not raining, as predicted. We originally thought that we would set off on our own but our guide suggested that we try to cycle together for the first day. We cycled out of Bruges to Ghent, a distance of 45 km. it was fantastic!!  It was easy to cycle as a group and we made good time. We stopped for one coffee break and a lunch break and we arrived in Ghent at 2:30. We had our first casualty as one person got her tire caught in a tram track and she fell down. She is a bit banged up but she is ok, thank goodness!
It started to rain just as we arrived in Ghent.  We went on a canal boat tour using umbrellas. We didn't see a lot but it was ok! Now we are sitting in a pub, trying to dry off and warm up!!
BTW, we don't have wifi on the boat, so my posts will be sporadic until we get to the Netherlands. I will try to post some pictures then.
Gunner rode on my handlebars today. He was a bit scared to begin with but he eventually got the hang of things!
In a few minutes we have to get back on our wet bikes and ride four more km to find our boat.  I think we will sleep well tonight!  Until next time.....