Ostend Bender

Ostend

Ostend, or Oostende in Flemish (pronounced Austender) is a Blegian city and municipality that is located on the coast of Belgium in the province of West-Flanders. Ever since I arrived in Belgium, friends and colleagues alike had been telling me to visit this part of the seaside to see its beautiful beaches and magnificent harbour. I wanted to wait until the weather was more sunny and predictable and so in early May, I drove, with friends, to this city.

I hadn't done much research before going as I was to be accompanied by people who had previously visited and had a fairly good knowledge of the area. It was a gloriously sunny day and we arrived just after 1 o'clock in the afternoon. After searching for around half an hour we eventually (luckily) found a parking place and headed off in search of the sea. 

A theme of my trips to Belgian cities seems to be that there is always some kind of festival or event occuring on the same dates the I am there. And in Ostend this was no different. No sooner had we left the car, when we saw the many fluttering flags strapped to the ropes of the sails on the boats in the harbour and it wasn't long before we realised that this was no ordinary day in the city. The Ostend voor Anker festival is a charming display of scrumptiously cooked seafood, beautifully decorated boats and folk music. As we hadn't yet eaten lunch we decided to wander through the market until we found something to snack on. The first stall we stumbled upon was an authentic looking cabin selling fantistic smelling smoked herring. As soon as my friends realised I had never tried this delicacy before they insisted I bought one, and it did not disappoint! My only slight problem with it was that I found it hard to avoid the many fish bones.

Following this we decided to head straight to the beach in case the sun were to suddenly disappear and that we could explore the market further on the way back to the car. The beach was a lot larger than I expected and crawling with families trying to make the most of the good weather. Much like many British beaches there was an assortment of wind breaks and patterned towels alongside beach games such as sand castle building and my personal favourite, bat and ball.

We wandered out along the pier for a while and took photos of the lighthouse standing confidently out to sea, before sitting upon the rocks and people watching whilst catching a few rays.

The view here was beautiful although largely disturbed by some massive red plastic sculptures that apparently are called art these days. To me they looked like giant versions of the plastic trash that we are trying so desperately to rid our oceans of in order to protect the wildlife and not ruin the landscape. As a result I find it hard to understand why they would install 500 times larger than life copies of this. However I am no artist, and it's probably one of those subjective things that involve the imagination of which I am lacking.

Anyway, back to the important stuff. Having expressed my disapproval, my friends thought it a good idea to continue our exploration of the markets and to sample a bit more of the freshly caught seafood that was for offer as my pickled herring had left me feeling rather hungry. We eventually decided on place filet exqhuisitely cooked and extremely cheap and it was delicious. I would highly recommend. Once our bellies were full we decided to make the most of the live folk music that was on display and so we grabbed a wine on a nearby terrace and sat back to relax.

Unfortunately we had a time constraint on our visit to Ostend as I would have liked to explore the city a bit further and perhaps see some of the architecture, however I had an extremely enjoyable day in the sun and would highly recommend Ostend to anyone planning a trip to Belgium. I would however warn any potential visitors that, due to higher tourism than in other parts of Belgium, prices in Ostend are much higher, especially if you plan to eat out in the restaurants on the harbour or sea front and so this may not be ideal on a student budget.