| Belgium - June 27 thru 29 |
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Leaving
London's Victoria Station, we took the high-speed Eurostar train to
Brussels Belgium crossing beneath the English Channel speeding along at
185 miles per hour. Amtrak has much to learn from Eurostar.
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| Our
only glitch occurred upon arrival at Brussels' main train station.
The auto rental office was closed. We gambled on the airport
location being open so we hopped a train and luck was on our side.
We got our car and only lost 2 hours.
Next stop Lokeren Belgium to meet Viviane Clapdorp, one of my European trip planning buddies. When we got to her house we were invited to a family get together at her brother's house. We had a great time there but unfortunately |
we
had to meet more friends in the medieval town of
Bruges
3 hours away.
Fran and I met Monique and Rob Kramers. They live west of Amsterdam Netherlands but drove down to Bruges to meet us and show us the grand tour. We had dinner that night, consumed way too much alcohol. Fighting a pretty substantial hangover, the next day, we toured all the sights and pigged out native beer and awesome Belgium chocolates. |
After
bidding farewell to Bruges, we headed to Bastogne - site of the famous
WWII Battle of the Bulge. Here we toured the memorial erected by
the town's people to celebrate and to pay homage to the Americans who
gave their lives in defense of the town. The museum is a must see
for any war buff.
Andy's Assessment: Great place. Avoid big cities (Brussels & Antwerp). Very affordable - US dollar goes far. Friendly. Awesome food and beer. A chocolate lovers Disneyland. |