Погода: Остенде, июнь

June in Bruges is unpredictable weather and predictable crowds. Regulars put the month anywhere from 12C to 28C, dry or very wet, and tell people to bring long sleeves, a coat and an umbrella regardless; our row's 20C reading as 19C with 9.7 precipitation days is the middling version. The crowd pattern is the useful part, because it runs on a timetable rather than a season: coaches, many of them from cruise ships, drop hundreds of people near Minnewater and give them about six hours, and the city transforms once the day-trippers have gone in the evening. Step a few streets off the obvious route and you are out of it even at midday. The record: 14.4C nights, 56.9mm of rain, 12.3 hours of sun and a 16.5-hour day.

Forum posters describe February across Belgium as similar to November - cold, wet and often bleak - with February specifically flagged as the month most likely to bring snow, though it rarely sticks around for more than a day or so. Posters are consistent that Belgium's weather generally runs genuinely unpredictable regardless of season, with June/July rated as the better overall visiting window compared to the depths of winter. Posters discussing nearby Ostend specifically in the neighboring shoulder-season month of March describe conditions as still mostly cold and rainy, with only the occasional genuinely nice day breaking through. Posters generally rate February as cold, damp and gray for Ostend, a beach visit here very much a summer rather than winter activity.

Forum posters call July-August the best weather months in Belgium overall, though they're candid the weather stays genuinely hard to predict - it might be 30C and sunny, or 15C and raining, sometimes within the same week. Posters note August specifically tends to run marginally warmer than July, with rain more likely to arrive as short, heavy bursts than sustained drizzle. Ostend itself is described as a popular, lively beach destination in good August weather, with beach festivals and fireworks part of the seasonal draw, and the sea staying warm enough for comfortable swimming - posters note this extends into early September for anyone visiting on the later side of the summer window.