The journey to Belgium wasn't too bad, although the coach driver lost some time travelling to Dover and so we missed the ferry, partly due to the customs people hauling us in to do a spot check on luggage. Bah! Then of course there were road works and we had to make a detour which added more time on to the journey. We eventually arrived in Menen at about half ten. Had a quick meal and then went to our room, or should I say sauna. I could not believe a hotel room could be so hot, a wall of heat hit us as we opened the door. And to make matters more interesting we could not leave the window open as we were on the ground floor. Did not sleep much! On Tuesday we went to Ypres ( the holiday was a battlefield tour) and went into the museum and thenafter to Essex Farm and Tyne Cot and then drove around Paschedale with a fantastic guide who gave us lots of information. In the evening wwe went back to Ypres for the Last Post ceremony. It was a very emotional day..... and then back to the sauna! Wednesday was a free day so husband and I caught the train to Oostende. It was a hot day and the beach was full of families. We had a lovely lunch ( seafood of course), a couple of Belgian beers ( I'm determined to work my way through them all but there are so many) and then back on the train to the sauna!!! Husband spent the night sleeping on the floor again. Now I know we could possibly have made a fuss and asked to change rooms but the coach tour had filled most of the hotel and I think every one was having the same problem as us. I think the Belgians must like to keep extrememly warm!) On Thursday we went into France to travel to the Somme. We went to Thiepval where some of the old soldiers on the tour placed a wreath. ( One of them was 87 and the other was over 90) We visited a french and a german war cemetery and again got lots of information from our guide. On the way back the driver gave us the wonderful news that we had to leave to come home at six o'clock in the morning, which meant a five o'clock wake up call and half five breakfast! Back to the sauna, husband spent the night sleeping on the bathroom tiles! The journey back was a nightmare, a huge divertion through France and then we hit lots of traffic. It took us almost 15 hours to get home. As you can imagine I am kn*****ed.
On a sad note, we heard that two ladies had to leave the tour and fly home, the mother of one of them was dying of ...yes, you have got it, cancer. On our way up the M something or other we heard that the mother had died. It's a bloody cr** disease.
Anyway we are planning another jaunt to Belgium we are hoping to take our grandchildren to Oostende at half term.
FormerMember
If you want to sample all the Belgian beers you need to pop into a little hotel called The Marion next time in Oostende. There are over 160 different beers and they claim to stock all of them. And they have the right glasses for each beer to pour it into.
My grandfather was taken pow at Passchendale and spent the remainder of the 1st world war in a coal mine in the Ruhr valley (but taught himself French and German and despite politics developed a love of German literature which inspired my mother and, later, me). Puts things in perspective a bit...
I lived and worked in Brussels for 4 years and loved every minute of it; still go back often as have friends there. Do definitely take your grandkids to Ostend; I remember it as a lovely sophisticated seaside town with nostalgic overtones.
I love it over there - the museum at Ypres is unbelievable. Did you go to hill sixty? It's a small private museum run by a farmer whose family worked the farm until the germans dug trenches all over it. It is a real shambles but there are some amazing 3-D photographs taken by Germans of the utter carnage including Hellfire corner where the average life expectancy was 2 days.
There s a pub in Bruges that has 366 different beers on offer - yes each in it's own individual glass. When you go in you get a menu of what the beers are, who brews them and what they taste like.
